What has Stalker been up to lately?

Fun fact: The Second Dream is Warframe’s first cinematic quest, and was released late in 2015. In said quest, we saw Stalker getting an upgrade and also getting a job. Stalker served the Sentient mastermind Hunhow, in the hopes that he would be able to kill the Tenno for their crimes against the Orokin. Before then, Stalker was mainly a scary character who would attack anyone with his death mark, kitted out with weapons and abilities on par with our Warframes.

After the Second Dream though, Stalker kinda disappeared. Well, he definitely wasn’t gone. In fact, Stalker kept all the shiny bits and pieces that Hunhow gave him and, for a bit, was stronger than ever. Most importantly, Stalker had gained Sentient resistance, allowing him to resist and become almost immune to most of the damage thrown with him. Dubbed Shadow Stalker, he now had a big scary sword and a lot more health, thanks to the Sentient damage reduction.

Not so tough any more.

Then the War Within happened. Thanks to our new, real forms, we use our Operators to remove Stalker’s Sentient resistance. A quick blast from any space kid would easily knock Stalker down a peg or two. Heck, some Operators can burst down Shadow Stalker the moment he spawns.

For ages, we only saw Stalker occasionally. And with more and more people awaking from the Second Dream and the War Within, Stalker’s attempts to beat us failed almost completely. Because it turns that ditching all your weapons for a bit of flimsy armour and a sword is never a good thing. The only time Stalker is actually scary is if you run into him on the Steel Path. But even then, Stalker’s Acolytes are probably all stronger than Stalker himself, since they still have their Warframe-like abilities.

Basically, being defeated by the Stalker is quite rare these days. With more and more people completing the War Within, Stalker almost always gets his armour stripped by a vaguely amused Tenno. The only time that Stalker managed to kill me, funnily enough, was when he spawned inside a Steel Path junction, where I was unable to use weapons or anything.

Quick warning, quick spoilers here. New War stuff, just so you know.

These days? Stalker is mostly doing what Stalker does. Attempting to kill us. However, he does have a friend, in a way. It turns out that, even after the Second Dream and Octavia’s Anthem, Hunhow is still alive. Alive but trapped at the bottom of the oceans of Uranus. What’s interesting is that, well, Stalker still works for Hunhow. And, amazingly, we actually see Stalker in the New War, where he is actually killing stuff. And, for once, he was not trying to kill us. For a brief moment, we got to see Stalker in a non-Tenno-murdering way.

Since the New War, I assume Stalker went back to stalking things. There is an interesting thought here though. All the Tenno were said to have disappeared. But Stalker didn’t disappear at all. If anything, he was more active than ever. So is Stalker actually a Tenno? I don’t think so any more. Otherwise he would have vanished the same time everyone else did.

But still, who IS Stalker? We’ll probably never know. He is alive though, at least…