During the “A Needle in a Haystack” main quest in Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, you will encounter an NPC that goes by the name of Squint. Right there, you will have the option to either kill Squint or give him a helping hand. This guide contains all the outcomes for either decision you make.
What Happens When You Help Squint in Stalker 2?
If you decide to help Squint by choosing the “What’s your escape plan?” dialogue option, he will tell you about an artifact that will help him escape. The artifact is inside a cave at a nearby location, which will get marked on your map when you accept the mission, “Piece of Cake.”
The entrance to the cave is inside a house at the marker on the map. Enter inside the house and get ready to explore the cave. As you enter the cave, you will get attacked by an invisible Bloodsucker, which can complicate things for you.
You can either face the Bloodsucker and defeat him or sprint past him. It is up to you whether you want to use your ammo or are better off just ignoring the mutant.
As you follow the path inside the cave, you will be led to an open area with acid puddles on the ground. Take out your Echo Scanner to detect the artifact. Get inside the puddle and listen for the beeps on the detector getting faster. The more aggressive the beeps, the closer you are to the artifact.
Once you are basically on top of the artifact, it will pop out of the ground, and you can grab it to store it in your backpack. Now that you have it, head back to Squint to give it to him.
As a reward, he will give you the Ward Sensors since he does not have any further use for them.
What Happens if You Kill Squint in Stalker 2?
If you decide to kill Squint right when you encounter him during the main mission, you will get to loot the Ward Sensors, along with some other loot from his body.
However, you will no longer be able to play out the Piece of Cake side quest, where you find the artifact. On top of that, you will only be able to give the Ward Sensors to Captain Zotov, which you also get to give to Richter if you keep Squint alive.
You can keep him alive to get the side quest, and after you have the artifact, you can either give it to him or keep it for yourself by killing him then. At that point, you get to keep the Ward Sensors and the artifact.
Which Option Should You Choose?
The better option would be to kill Squint right away and head to the cave by yourself. He does not have anything else to offer you other than the Ward Sensors, which you can get from him right at the start by killing him.
The artifact you get from the cave, Mold, is also not worth the effort to go for. You also have to face the Bloodsucker, which is not worth it for the Mold artifact that only provides weak chemical protection.
Neither Richter nor Captain Zotov will inquire about what happened to Squint as long as you provide the Ward Sensors to them, so there are not many consequences for killing Squint. The only one is that you will not be able to give the Ward Sensors to Richter. Other than that, you can finish off Squint at the start, get the Ward Sensors, and get on with it.
There you have it. Those were all the different outcomes for you, so you can make your decision as to whether you should help or kill Squint. For more guides on Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, take a look at how to find artifacts in Stalker 2.
Published: Nov 28, 2024 07:53 am