Arena

Arena is the place where stalkers can fight each other or mutants for money, or bet on fights. You can participate any time it opens.

This quest is unmarked but Arnie will announce Arena tiers 2 and 3 with a message 12 hours before opening.

## Walkthrough

### Tier 1

The first tier is the standard vanilla Arena from Shadow of Chernobyl, which is a series of progressively tougher fights. You need at least the rank of Veteran to compete in the last two fights. The only difference from vanilla is one additional free-for-all fight at the end.
The rewards for fights are as follows:

* 1000RU, fight with a rookie using a PM
* 2000RU, fight with an experienced opponent using an HK MP5A4
* 3000RU, fight with two experienced stalkers using a sawn-off shotgun
* 4000RU, 3x3 team deathmatch (Your equipment: AK-74 with 30 rounds of regular rounds and 60 rounds of armor piercing rounds)
* 6000RU, fight with two military Veterans (Your equipment: AN-94 with 120 armor piercing rounds)
* 8000RU, Crime and Punishment (fight against 6 bandits) (Your equipment: Groza with 30 SP-5 rounds and 90 SP-6 rounds)
* 10000RU, fight against a Master stalker using only a knife and two grenades
* 10000RU, free for all match between four Masters and Marked One.

The total reward for tier 1 is 44000RU. Each fight, Marked One's entire inventory will be dropped into a stash near the entrance.

### Tier 2

Once tier 1 is finished, Arnie will open the "full" version of Arena each 1-4 days from 5:30AM to 2:30PM. You'll have a wide selection of fights and bets. Don't bother with betting though (see the bugs section below). You can raise stakes and accept a timed challenge, which is a recommended option as it makes up to twice as much money.

Tier 2 makes 40000-120000RU total, depending on luck and challenges accepted. 70000-80000RU is a typical amount.

### Tier 3

After you win bloodbaths (1 vs 6) against each faction at least once, the wide selection of fights with humans will disappear, and you will be fighting a "Zone team" from now on instead. This is a 1 vs 12 fight, it's significantly harder, and it only pays 10000RU.

To stay on Tier 2 and keep fighting humans as usual forever, just choose an arbitrary faction and  **never agree to 1 vs 6 fights** against it.

Mutant fights will still stay unchanged in Tier 3.

## Notes

* Arena makes good money, especially in the early game. Be sure to always raise the stakes to the max and complete the fight in time.
* The faction that opponents of the Arena are "Mercenary".
* Mutants in the Arena are resistant to melee damage in particular. As an example, a pseudogiant will take 2 swings instead of 1. However, they have no additional resistance to firearms.
* You can drop your weapons, but the weapons you dropped do not carry to the next fights.
	+ For example, you cannot drop your AK-74 with the 3v3 fight and use it against the Spetsnaz fight, so you are forced to use the AN-94 (not good, but it is fair).
* While 40mm grenades are not allowed in the Arena, the grenade that is already loaded into your UBGL is OK to use.

## Bugs

* Most things found on opponents can't be taken out of Arena, but 40mm grenades and certain ammo can, so be sure to loot all bodies after the victory. You can also eat food and use medkits. Besides, you still can find info such as random stashes and letters on their bodies.
* When betting on fights, opponent teams will sometimes wander around the arena aimlessly, ignoring each other and softlocking the game. It's usually better to skip the bets entirely, as it's mostly a waste of time, they make very little money.