Do I need to play the first stalker games to play this one?

[DF^2]

Hi I never played the first games of the franchise despite I have them in my library. Do I need to play them before? Do I lose something if I start from this one?

Ty for your replies!

[space]

no

[DarkFire]

You don't need to play them, no. However, if you do then you'll get a better sense of the overall history of the zone, and some characters and places will already be familiar to you. Are the original games worth playing through? Absolutely yes, but not necessary.

[Shoebsy]

Not at all, They're all very standalone in story and concept. You'll pick up on a lot of cute details if you do. but not needed at all. A lot of the theme is "unexplained world, humanity at odds"

[Hashi23]

You should, since this one is currently broken as there are game breaking bugs later on in the campaign that prevent progression. Until they fix all the issues I recommend playing the first 3 games starting in Order: SoC, CS and finally CoP. And hopefully they will have fixed the game by then and if not well let's hope the modders figured something out.