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STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl‘s got its fair share of problems, for sure, but once you’ve got it properly modded, it’s a uniquely compelling experience with much to offer. Artifact hunting, for example, has never been better than it is in STALKER 2, and that’s partially thanks to legendary Artifacts.
More specifically, though STALKER 2 plays host to over 50 unique types of Artifacts, at least ten of those are bespoke legendary-rarity spawns. That’s right: STALKER finally has rarity differentiation for its Artifacts, and we’ve got Common, Uncommon, and Legendary Artifacts with a bit more delineation in this very last category. More on that later.
The important bit is that some Artifacts are now extremely elusive and won’t pop up unless you’re really lucky and/or skilled. Or, in some specific cases, know exactly where to look for them. Down below, I’ve assembled a list of all of these legendary Artifacts and explained how to find them and what makes them such a big deal.
Screenshot by DestructoidHow to find all legendary Artifacts in STALKER 2
Legendary Artifacts are, of course, the most powerful of them all in STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. Usually, they grant Skif either entirely unique effects or fully max out a particular kind of resistance. Naturally, they also fetch extremely high prices with Traders, so they’re highly coveted no matter why you might be looking for them. Here’s how and where to look for each of the nine unique legendary Artifacts in STALKER 2!
Weird Flower
Sleeping with this flower equipped makes it much harder for your enemies to detect you. The effect diminishes as time goes on.
The first in a long line of delightfully Weird Artifacts is the Weird Flower, which you may or may not have stumbled upon while figuring out how to deal with the Poppy Field Anomaly. The Weird Flower isn’t hard to spot if you know to keep an eye out for it: a bright-blue flower kind of stands out in a sea of red. You can grab it around the northern section of the anomaly. Just approach from the side of the small cliff and slowly sift through the Poppy Field until you can grab it.
The Weird Flower massively improves Skif’s stealth and lowers his visibility, with the caveat being that this effect diminishes the longer it is since he last slept. This means you’re going to want to equip the Weird Flower, sleep with it, and then take on stealth missions like Solid Snake would. It’s a neat little Artifact, though hardly game-changing.
Weird Ball
This artifact “eats” the physical and gravitational damage dealt and grows heavier the more of it you take. Stacks up to 5 kg in weight.
The Weird Ball is one of the most potent Artifacts you can grab during the early stages of the game. If you take the eastern road out of Zalissya and look to your left as you go, it won’t take long before you spot the ominous Bulba Anomaly. Don’t be like me: quick save before approaching the Bulba!
With that all sorted out, Bulba is going to kill you in a single hit if you allow it to suck Skif in. Thankfully, figuring out Bulba’s effect pattern shouldn’t be hard, and the crucial piece of advice I can offer here is to use the nearby detritus (i.e., the bus and the ambulance car) while crouching. This will make it impossible for Bulba to pull you in. All you need to do at that point is to slowly approach from the bus’s right side and grab the Weird Ball once you’re close enough.
Weird Ball reduces the damage you take by “eating” it. Whenever the Artifact “eats” damage, it grows heavier, and it takes a while before it resets. The effect is particularly potent when you’re standing still.
Weird Bolt
Massively reduces all damage taken from Anomalies. Recharges by going outside just before an Emission hits.
It only makes sense that the Zone would take one of the Stalkers’ fabled bolts and turn it into something magical. The Weird Bolt is found smack-dab in the middle of the anomalous Tornado over in Yaniv, and grabbing it is going to take some skill and a whole boatload of luck.
Head on over to the Tornado and set your eyes on the tall crane. You need to make your way to the top of the crane while the Tornado is elsewhere and then stay there as the Tornado approaches. The Weird Bolt is actually inside the anomaly, and you’re going to need to grab it as it flies by. Obviously, this is no mean feat, and I highly recommend quick-saving once you’re on the crane to prevent undue frustration.
The juice is well worth the squeeze, though! Weird Bolt reduces all damage taken from Anomalies by a whopping 70% or so. The slight issue is that it needs to recharge every so often, and the only way to do that is to stand outside just before an Emission kills you. Neat, right? You’ll know that your Weird Bolt is ready to be used whenever it glows hot-red.
Weird Nut
Passively heals applied bleeding effects, but makes healing items less potent.
If bleeding is a huge pain for you in combat (which is fairly understandable), you’re probably going to want to spend some time hunting down the Weird Nut. Locating it is very easy, as long as you don’t mind wading through squads of Monolith troops to get to it! Your target is the Fire Whirl Anomaly found in the Cooling Towers region. This one’s so big and bombastic you can see it right from your PDA’s map: the red-hot glowing bit, you can’t miss it.
To get the Weird Nut, just waltz on over to the Fire Whirl and start climbing onwards. Your goal is the small section of steel railing that the Fire Whirl basically rubs against as it moves around. There’s some slightly tricky platforming involved, for sure, but the really problematic bit is getting out of the Whirl’s damaging area of effect fast enough to stay alive. Expect some trial-and-error here, but your reward is extremely useful.
The Weird Nut makes it so that your bleeding effects heal automatically, but the downside is that it also makes all of your healing items less potent in total. Still, it’s worth the trouble in my book!
Weird Water
Automatically applies the drunken effect to your character. Reduces the effects of radiation and adds an extra 40 kg weight capacity.
Found in the Zaton region, smack-dab in the middle of the Wandering Lights Anomalous Area, Weird Water is both the most annoying and arguably the most useful Artifact of them all. That’s because it increases your carry capacity by an excellent amount while also making Skif perpetually drunk. Yeah, that’s some weird water, alright.
To find Weird Water, head on over to Wandering Lights from Noontide’s Shelter base. You need to reach the Anomaly by 9 PM in-game time at the latest and then get cozy with a quick save. Just before 10 PM, get to the southwest part of Wandering Lights, the bit that borders with a swamp, and hang tight. AT 10 PM sharp, Weird Water should spawn on top of a big rock. It does appear to be somewhat buggy at this time, mind, so be prepared to keep trying this out for a while.
Did I mention that Weird Water also almost completely eliminates any radiation danger while you’ve got it equipped? Yeah, it’s like an infinite vodka that automatically sips itself.
Hypercube
Maximum thermal and bleeding protection. Maximum applied radiation.
This super-rare Artifact spawns exclusively in thermal anomalies, and since it’s a random spawn, all you can do is hope for the best when you find one. I recommend checking the Brain Scorcher and the Burning Rift Anomalous Zones, specifically, as they’re fairly easy to navigate and come with a huge number of thermal Anomalies by default.
Remember that Artifacts will occasionally respawn following Emissions. This means you’re going to want to revisit your favorite thermal hunting grounds every so often if you really want to get the Hypercube. This bit of advice applies to every single “regular” legendary Artifact on this list, too.
The Hypercube is a huge help with thermal and bleed damage, but radiation handling will be a problem. You’re probably going to want to have a Liquid Rock handy before equipping the Hypercube.
Liquid Rock
Maximum radiation and chemical protection.
And on that note, Liquid Rock is no easier to find than the Hypercube. In fact, it’s a fair deal more annoying to look for because while avoiding thermal Anomalies is easy enough after a while, the same cannot be said about chemical ones.
My advice is to look for Fruit Punch (green/yellow acid puddles on the floor) and Bubble Anomalies, as those are reasonably manageable even from afar. I was lucky enough to snag the Liquid Rock in the Marshes, but it’s not a bad idea to look for it in the Chasm, either.
There’s no real downside to using the Liquid Rock, either. With its radiation and chemical protection in tow, you’re going to be able to both equip at least one more legendary Artifact or a bunch of regular ones that boost it.
Compass
Maximum physical protection. Maximum applied radiation.
Funnily enough, the Compass is, in my experience, the most common of all legendary Artifacts. This is the gravitational Anomalies’ super-rare find, and it’s going to pop up sooner or later as long as you keep searching through Kordon and the Lesser Zone. There’s a huge number of grav-Anomalies to be found in these regions.
Using the Compass is a problem without Liquid Rock because it massively increases your radioactivity, but it also boosts your protection from physical damage by a fair margin. An excellent choice to have alongside the Weird Ball Artifact, as they’ll turn you into a walking tank.
Thunderberry
Maximum endurance enhancement. Maximum applied radiation.
The Thunderberry is the single legendary Artifact I am yet to come across. Sure enough, electrical Anomalies are easy enough to come across, but the Thunderberry just doesn’t want to spawn no matter where I go, so fingers crossed you have better luck than I did! It’s a handy Artifact, too: it allows you to run for extremely long periods of time, as long as you can deal with its radiation build-up.
Since electro-Artifacts fetch great prices with traders, farming for the Thunderberry is an excellent way to stock up Koupons for endgame-tier raids and crucial equipment upgrades.
Heart of Chornobyl
Strelok’s legendary Artifact. Used in the main story quest.
If you were wondering what STALKER 2‘s subtitle was all about, it’s this particular Artifact. Now, of course, I don’t mean to spoil much about the main narrative. This means I can’t tell you exactly what this Artifact does. The bit I can tell you about is that STALKER series veterans will find it extremely familiar from the original cutscenes of the old Shadow of Chernobyl title.
Since this Artifact is downright pivotal for the main story, you won’t be able to find it just by roaming about. A particular sequence of events needs to play out for Skif to get the Heart of Chornobyl, and let’s just say they do not necessarily lead to the best possible conclusion.
Screenshot by DestructoidWeird Artifacts vs legendary Artifacts
Curiously enough, there may well be a further distinction we can make within the loose category of legendary Artifacts found in STALKER 2. Specifically, whereas many legendaries can be found multiple times if you’re lucky enough, the same cannot be said for particular Weird items. Of course, I’m talking about the following legendary Artifacts here:
- Weird Bolt
- Weird Ball
- Weird Flower
- Weird Water
- Weird Nut
Whereas the majority of Artifacts found in the Zone are entirely new objects created out of mutated detritus and Noosphere reagent, Weird items are most definitely not that. Instead, they’re kind of like Control‘s Objects of Power: regular items subjected to physics-defying forces that mutate them into something much different.
The thing about Weird Artifacts (or Arch-Artifacts, as some call them) is that they’re unique, bespoke items you can only ever find once in a STALKER 2 playthrough. They are also found exclusively in particular places on the map, which makes finding them relatively easy.
Really, as long as you know roughly where a Weird Artifact is located, all you need to figure out is how to deal with its specific Anomalous Area, and you’re golden. Sometimes, this might mean coming extremely well equipped, as is the case with the Poppy Field’s Weird Flower. Other times, as with Bulba’s Weird Ball, you might have to think fast to survive the local damaging effect.
From a gameplay perspective, the notable bit here is that whereas you have to use an Artifact to find regular legendaries, Weird Artifacts are visible to the naked eye. Finally, another important tidbit is that you probably don’t want to sell off Weird Artifacts willy-nilly, as there’s no way to get them again.
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