STALKER 2: Should I Side With Ward or Noontide?

Far into the story of STALKER 2, you’ll have to make an important decision that locks you into one of the two major factions — Ward or Noontide / Spark. Ward wants to destroy the Zone, while helping Noontide actually puts you on the Spark faction ending path. Spark wants to see the Zone thrive and fights back any attempt to control it. Both factions have their rewards for joining them, but if you’re curious how things play out and what changes happen, here’s a quick guide explaining how this works. Beware, there will be major spoilers ahead if you haven’t reached the mission where you have to choose between these two factions.

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Wishful Thinking Main Mission Choices

The major turning point of the story occurs in the SIRCAA Compound during the Wishful Thinking main mission. In this mission, you’ll be given many choices — but only one will lock you in totally with the Ward or Noontide (Spark) faction.

• After talking to Dr. Dalin and escaping the Wish Granter experiment, you’ll be called by Agatha into an office to deal with Dr. Hermann. Your choice to release or kill Hermann doesn’t matter.
• Later, Agatha will ask you for information on the Noontide attack. This choice also doesn’t matter.
• Finally, you’ll go talk to Dubny — one of the Noontide Soldiers. Here, you can choose to side with Noontide or side with Ward.

Depending on what you do here, there are massive, major changes to the world of STALKER 2. You’ll want to make a save here in case you don’t like your choice.

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What Happens If You Side With Noontide?

Noontide seems like the obvious choice for heroic stalkers. You’ll be siding with your buddy Faust the former Monolithian. Aiding him puts you in a gunfight against Ward. It also locks you out of certain areas of the map.

• After the mission Wishful Thinking, the Noontide faction is destroyed, and Monolith returns with a vengeance. The army of brainwashed soldiers are attacking everywhere.
• Siding with Noontide essentially sides you with Spark — the underground terrorist faction. You’ll gain a new base in the Rostok region outside the Rostok trainyard settlement controlled by Freedom.
• The Spark base has access to special unique weapons and armor sets. The Technician is also advanced and will upgrade high level weapons.
• Ward becomes hostile to the player and will shoot-on-sight.
• You’ll lose access to all Ward bases — Icarus, the Chemical Plant and STC Malachite are all permanently blocked off.

Other minor Ward bases like the Slag Heap and Zalissya will be abandoned by Ward. While Zalissya is destroyed, the Slag Heap will remain. The Spark path doesn’t block you off from unlocking the Ward ending, as you can still betray Scar and the Spark faction at the very end.

What Happens If You Side With Ward?

Ward are the authoritarian and technologically advanced soldiers in the Zone — and they seem like the bad guys, but siding with them has many, many more benefits than siding with Spark / Noontide.

• The Spark faction will become hostile to you. Unlike Ward, Spark has very little presence on the ground and you’ll rarely encounter Spark agents while exploring.
• The Spark base in Rostok will be locked off, but there is already a large base nearby in this region, so gaining the Spark base isn’t helpful.
• You’ll keep access to all Ward bases — Icarus, the Chemical Plant and STC Malachite will remain safe places.

Siding with Ward will block you off from certain ending paths — and it is a far easier path to walk. Siding with Ward gives you more resources, more allies and more safety while exploring the Zone. Spark takes away safety nets and makes the world in certain areas of the map much harder.

What Changes No Matter What?

Whether you choose either faction, some things will change in the Zone.

• Zalissya base will be lost. The Ward abandons the location.
• Ward also abandons the Slag Heap, but the safe zone still remains.
• Monolith soldiers patrol many previously safe locations and spawn everywhere — they’re much more difficult and better equipped than average bandits.
• The Noontide base on Wild Island will be lost permanently.

If you want to explore, you may want to wait until visiting SIRCAA — the entire map is available to you early in the game, so if you want to go to the far reaches of the map and still have plentiful settlements to use, save travelling to SIRCAA for later.