Stalkers are Lesser Husks that first appear in the mission [ 4-2: GOD DAMN THE SUN ]. They detonate to cover other enemies in golden sand, making it so that they cannot bleed. In the Cyber Grind, they are a massive problem due to their ability to sandify powerful enemies.
Appearance[]
Stalkers are shriveled, dark grey humanoids with spindly legs and a perpetually hunched appearance. They are clothed in gold-lined black cloth that hangs downward from their side, with golden rings that circle around their wrists and legs. The Stalker's head is covered by a hood and a gas mask with yellow lenses and a long oxygen tube that dangles from the mouth.
A Stalker's physiology is bizarre. Its head is completely reversed on its body, facing backward. Its arms are warped to hold a large glowing bomb on its "back", which in reality is actually its front. Thus, the Stalker is always walking backward in relation to its body, shambling along with an awkward gait.
While idle, Stalkers will occasionally tremble, as if about to drop the burden they are forced to carry. When they walk, the rings on their limbs will jingle with every step. At all times, Stalkers will constantly take in frantic, raspy breaths through their gas mask. When they are about to detonate, they let out a loud, distorted screech before slamming down their bomb and exploding.
A Stalker's bomb is cylindrical, being mostly glass with rings of colored light and metal. Contained within is a large pile of golden powder, which converts blood to gold sand on contact. The Stalker's bomb will constantly give off a low humming noise. As the Stalker is damaged, the lights on its bomb will dim and its humming will begin to distort and falter. As the bomb is about to detonate, the lights flash red and the bomb gives off a loud beeping noise.
Combat[]
By default, Stalkers will not attack V1, instead shambling towards a nearby enemy before slamming down their bomb and detonating it. Stalkers pick targets to sand based on their support priority rank. If there are multiple enemies of the same rank, then the Stalker will target the enemy closest to it. Stalkers will not target flying enemies (Drones, Mindflayers, and Virtues), Idols, or other Stalkers, though they can still be caught in the detonation's range. If no valid targets are available, Stalkers will begin to target V1 and try to detonate on top of it. Killing a Stalker at any time will cause it to explode with a smaller area of effect. Uniquely, Swordsmachines will actively seek out and attack Stalkers in order to sand themselves, while Malicious Faces will lower themselves into the blast radius.
Excluding unique bosses and invalid targets, the priority brackets for Stalkers are as follows:
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Any enemies caught in a Stalker's explosion will have their blood permanently turned into sand and will no longer bleed upon taking damage. If V1 itself is caught in a Stalker's explosion, it will take 10 hard damage which is quickly healed. On Violent difficulty, all missing health is converted to Hard Damage, temporarily preventing V1 from healing (unless at ULTRAKILL style).
A Stalker's bomb has a ring of light on its top, middle, and bottom, indicating its status. Upon spawning, a Stalker's bomb will glow green, and will not detonate. After 5 seconds, it will turn yellow, indicating the Stalker is ready to explode. Finally, after a Stalker has found its target and is preparing to detonate, the bomb turns red and the Stalker sacrifices itself by dunking the bomb onto the ground.
A Stalker is immune to being sanded, likely because its blood is already sand. As such, it is unable to bleed. Due to the canister's weight, the Whiplash cannot pull in Stalkers, and will instead pull V1 toward it.
If a Stalker is made invulnerable by an Idol, it will not die after detonating its payload and its bomb will reset to its green state, allowing it to detonate multiple times. On Brutal difficulty, Stalkers do not die after detonating their bomb even without the protection from an Idol.
An important thing to note about the sand buff is that it does not affect parries. If you can successfully parry an attack from a sanded enemy, it will heal you. While not nearly as safe a method as simply coming in contact with blood, it can still prove feasible if you have the skillset to do it.
Difficulty Changes[]
- HARMLESS and LENIENT
- Stalkers do not do any damage at all.
- STANDARD
- Stalkers do 10 hard damage to V1;
- VIOLENT
- Stalkers do 10 hard damage to V1, any missing health is also converted to hard damage;
- BRUTAL
- Stalkers do 10 hard damage to V1, any missing health is also converted to hard damage;
- Stalkers no longer die once they perform their explosion; they must be killed by the player themselves;
Terminal Data[]
For more information, see Terminal.
TYPE: LESSER HUSK
DATA:
As the Greed layer's punishment, Stalkers have been forced to carry heavy boulders up the monuments of mankind's greed for all eternity.They have carried out their punishment for so long that their bodies have evolved, warped and grown to better suit it.
Their limbs have twisted to give them better balance while carrying boulders on their backs and their skin and muscles have completely dried up, allowing them to survive direct contact with the dunes of gold dust that Greed's sun has raised to unfathomably high temperatures.
However, an unidentified sentient force has replaced the boulders they would normally carry with high tech bombs that, upon detonation, will transform any nearby blood into the gold dust "sand" that covers the layer's surface.
Research has shown the technology to be very similar to the augmentations of the modified Strays known as Soldiers, so it is likely both modifications come from the same source.
STRATEGY:
- The lights on the canister give information on a Stalker's state. The color shows the state of their explosive and the brightness of the color shows how much health the Stalker has left.- It's advisable to forcibly detonate a Stalker rather than allowing one to detonate itself, as the latter explosion will have a larger area of effect.
- If a Stalker gets close to its target and can no longer be pushed away, a ground slam wave can launch them out of range so they can be detonated safely in mid-air, since the explosion is mostly horizontal.
- Attaching magnets to a Stalker will reduce the radius of its detonation.
Rending Apart[]
Stalkers have relatively low health, and can be easily killed by any weapon; a single ricoshot with the Marksman Revolver or one shot with the Alternate Revolver will instantly kill a Stalker. However, the main issue isn't killing a Stalker, but preventing it from dying around other enemies, rendering you unable to heal from them. Thus, it is a priority for the player to single out and kill a Stalker as fast as possible before it is able to path toward an enemy and explode.
Beyond the options already listed, good ways to kill Stalkers include Rockets, Projectile Boosting and the Nailgun. Using the Shotgun's primary fire at point blank and killing a Stalker this way on Violent difficulty is highly discouraged, as doing so will deal 10 damage and turn all missing health into Hard Damage. The Attractor Nailgun has additional utility in taking out Stalkers, as embedding 1/2/3 magnets into a Stalker will reduce its explosion radius by 25/37.5/50%.
If a Stalker has already made its way close to an enemy and killing it will still sand the enemy with the reduced radius, using the Knuckleblaster's punch to launch the Stalker far away; An upward-aimed punch with it will send them up to a considerable height. Be wary of doing this when the Stalker isn't at full health, as this can instead cause the Stalker to explode in the face. Once the Stalker is airborne through a Knuckleblaster or ground slam, one can use any weapon, preferably the Alternate Revolver, to safely eliminate the stalker. A similar technique can be enacted with the indirect hit explosion of the Rocket Launcher, allowing Stalkers to be quickly launched away from enemies and killed with no risk of causing the Stalker to detonate on the enemy regardless of health. If knocking back the Stalker is not possible and is about to explode, killing it outright will reduce the amount of enemies being sanded, due to its decreased explosion radius.
If a Stalker manages to sand an enemy, then it is important to keep in mind that sanded enemies and their attacks can still be parried, which heals V1 up to the hard damage cap.
History[]
| Patch 13b (2023/4/28) | Radiant Stalkers no longer cause sandified enemies to become radiant. |
|---|---|
| Patch 12b (2023/3/21) | Physics of Stalkers changed to reduce the possibility of phasing through surfaces when magneted. Radiant Stalkers will now also make the enemies it sands radiant. |
| Patch 11b (2022/8/29) | Ferryman now has a Stalker priority rank. |
| Patch 10b Hotfix (2022/2/19) | Fixed Stalkers not being launchable. Also fixed Stalker's spawn effect's light being the wrong color. |
| The Saw Your Heart Update (2022/2/17) | Stalkers can now die of fall damage. Fixed Stalkers not destroying magnets attached to them when self-destructing. |
| Patch 8c Lukewarmhotfix (2021/8/24) | Stalkers' Terminal entry updated to reflect balance changes. |
| Patch 8b Lukewarmfix (2021/8/23) | Reduced self-destruction timer for the first Stalker in 4-2 back to 3 seconds to avoid unnecessary waiting on replays. |
| The Sandbox Update (2021/8/14) | Stalker self-destruction countdown increased from 3 to 5. Magnets now decrease radius of sandification explosion. |
| Patch 7: GREED Update (2021/6/24) | Stalker introduced with the new Greed layer, and now appear in the Cyber Grind. |
| ULTRAKILL 62 - Stalker (2020/12/19) | Stalker is demonstrated on Hakita's YouTube channel.[1] |
Trivia[]
The Stalker and their sandcastle seen in 4-2.
- The original concept art for the Stalker was made by Jericho, and its model was made by Action Dawg.
- In [ 4-2: GOD DAMN THE SUN ], there is a Stalker found sitting behind the Statue of Liberty with a small sandcastle. Shooting the sandcastle will create a massive explosion covering the whole map, instantly killing V1 and any other entities alive on the level.
- You cannot dodge this by using the dash's invincibility frames due to the long lasting hitbox of the explosion.
- Originally, Stalkers had a 3-second timer before their bombs armed, which was changed to the current 5 seconds since it was determined to be too little time to locate them in the Cyber Grind. This had the unintended consequence of making the Stalker tutorial demonstration in 4-2 last too long, and so the arming timer was reverted to 3 seconds only for this specific Stalker.[2]
- Stalkers cannot deal any damage to V1 if their HP is above 100.
- Due to the way a Stalker's body is structured, a Stalker is actually performing a suplex on its bomb whenever it slams it down and detonates.
- Certain bosses are actually priority targets for Stalkers, such as V2 and Cancerous Rodent.
- Stalker used to be the name given to Strays. The name was given to current Stalkers for the sake of referencing the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R..
- This, the Idol, The Streetcleaner and the Cancerous Rodent are currently the only four enemies in the game to not have any parriable attack.
- From game versions 12b to 13a, Radiant Stalkers were able to share their buffs with the enemies they sand. This was reverted due to balance concerns in the Cyber Grind.
- The culmination of the P-2 ARG revealed that Hell itself is responsible for replacing the Stalker's boulders with sand bombs and augmenting Strays into Soldiers, to create a fighting force of tortured souls melded with human technology for its own entertainment.[3]
- When falling from a fatal height, their ragged breathing becomes higher pitched.
- The Stalker seems to have a mask, based on the plague doctors of 14th century England.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ @ULTRAKILLGame: The Stalker is a new enemy that looks for other enemies and, upon death, releases a cloud of sand that turns the blood of all nearby enemies to sand so you can no longer heal off them.
- ↑ ULTRAKILL Developer Commentary Stream with Hakita and PITR (4:42:27)
- ↑ Hitchhiker's Guide to P-2 ARG
