Should you kill Solder in Stalker 2?
Will Solder show up later if you leave him alive?
Should you kill Solder or simply knock him out in Stalker 2's main story mission, "Behind Seven Seals"? You might remember Solder from the prologue of Stalker 2 - he's the guy who spoke to you on the radio, telling you where to plant the scanner you were lugging around. After it becomes clear that you were betrayed, your task is to enter the compound known as the Sphere in order to interrogate Solder.
Once you find and overpower Solder beneath the Sphere, he tells you that he was just a pawn, and a man named Nestor is the man behind it all. Then, you have the option to either kill him, or simply knock him out. But which is the best choice? Read the guide below to find out what happens if you kill Solder, and whether he'll appear later on in your Stalker 2 playthrough if you leave him alive.
Warning: minor story spoilers follow.
Should you kill Solder in Stalker 2?
There are no immediate consequences to killing Solder during the "Behind Seven Seals" quest. However, if you choose to simply knock Solder out instead of killing him, then he will briefly appear later on in the story in the mission "The Hornet's Nest", and help you by making a particular fight quite a bit easier.
If you keep Solder alive, he won't appear until quite a lot later on in the story. To give you an idea, the main storyline will take you through the Lesser Zone, Garbage, Wild Island, Zaton, the Swamps, and SIRCAA before giving you the quest "The Hornet's Nest" in which Solder appears once again. In other words, it'll be many hours before you see him again.
We won't go into the details of this later quest to avoid unnecessary spoilers. But suffice it to say that your choice boils down to either killing Solder now, or keeping him alive so that you can make a later mission a bit easier.
Because there's no downside to keeping him alive, I recommend simply knocking Solder out so that he can be around to help you later on. That is, if you can stomach the idea of not killing him. But if you do kill him, you don't get anything major out of it. You get to loot his body, but all he has on him is a very ordinary rifle and some paltry loot. I leave it in your capable hands, Stalker.
That wraps up our guide on whether or not to kill Solder in Stalker 2, and the outcomes of either killing him or leaving him alive later on. While you're here, why not check out our guides on how to fast travel, how to get more ammo, how to repair, how to upgrade, and how to increase your carry weight limit.