Final Area (Nuclear Power Plant) *Late game Spoiler

[FleshyCannibal]

This final stretch is absolute bull****. Full explanation:
1. Reaching the watcher hideout is whatever.
2. Entering the building is the first load of horse****. You are surrounded on all sides apart from the entrance. Once you have to shoot one person, the cavalry pushes you back to the entrance. The only reason I got passed this part was exiting and entering back and forth like 30 times wasting bullets spray and praying. I used like 3 green and a purple medkit here for this stupid encounter.
3. Back to mild bull**** whatever. Hallways with a re****ed amounts of watchers. Made it to the first railway exit.
4. Pretty whatever again. At least you're not subjected to small corridor fighting for the most part but again, a ridiculous amount of watchers. I am pretty sure I made it to the last watcher to kill after a stretch of twisty hallways after some lab looking areas. I looted a body for a medkit or bandage only to get ambushed by one lucky f*** who peaked out right when I started looting.
5. Overall, this is piss poor level design. I had very few arguments with this game up until this point.

[Booker_B]

yup, i 100% agree. 1 hunter vs 100 180 degree no scope chuck norris clones.

that can smell you even when using silencer.

Had to Rage quit multiple times.

Imagine doing this iron man ...

[Warmech]

The biggest problem is that most of the rest of the game and enemy behavior is built around flanking and having at least a couple different ways to reposition out of their lock on. Throwing that all away and suddenly putting the hardest enemies in long corridors and enclosed spaces with no other option to move around or avoid them is just horrible design.

[Zom-A]

I'm currently stuck on the Watcher building and I agree it is insane and extremely unfair. I've been stocking up on flash bangs and grenades hoping those would help, but the Watchers just end up storming me in seconds at the entrance.

[inotna2001]

The watchers HQ is a sudden difficulty spike. Once I finally reached the end at the nuclear plant, it felt like beating a hard dark souls boss, pretty neat.
Tip for the watchers HQ building:
-Right at the entrance, you can camp in the room on the left (there is always one watcher in there), where you can fight horizontally.
-In the main hallway, there seems to be a hidden trigger that makes them rush at you. Once you retreat to the room on the left mentioned above, they stop rushing you and retreat to their posts or hang around that area at the entrance.

[Zashary]

i did that in my first try on hunter difficult... just be patient and wait them, don't push them

[PoDH]

Honestly I found WAY more BS in the Crystal dimension entrance. Next to zero cover and room to play around with 4 watchers at the entrance, and any grenades just mean death.

In the HQ at least you have that left room that's big enough to dodge any grenade and have actual cover.

And with the railway nuclear power plant entrance it's a really doggy but very doable. Tossing a grenade are really good distraction before peeking to shoot and because the map is dark, unless you got flashlight on, it's very easy to make the enemy lose you.

[Randombandit]

I am crazy late to the party but I JUST finished my first play ever. I did it almost entirely blind and perma-death, only middle difficulty. While I agree the watcher base is absurd, I did it just with an RS-29 and Valentin Armor. My first push earlier was repelled, but I just recognized that and fell back and extracted and carried on with missions. In the end, it was all I had left. Bringing stims, MREs, purple meds on 3, 4, 5 for panic-heals, flashbangs for days on any obvious spots, LOTS of blue and purple repair to top up my armor and gun as often as I bandages, and it honestly was not bad, just really slow. Having been playing perma-death and not remotely familiar with the later game at all, I was overly cautious and simply didn't loot unless I cleared the floor, or had a couple mines down covering the path ahead.
Now that I "beat" it, I have been looking stuff up and I chose peace at the wishing portal, even though I deciphered the binary...I wouldn't have thought of the way you are supposed to do it. So that part was a little BS, but ultimately, I never felt cheesed and the few times I wanted to call HAX was just me not taking my time and doing stuff like scouting around a camp for wolves or wandering Armans before sniping into it. When I really started doing that and taking out the long-guns first, or knowing I was going indoors and bringing an anti-swarm SMG and a anti armor rifle, AND adjusting perks to the mission, it plateaued in difficulty around mid-game.

/rant