Talk:Watcher

Merge this article with Lurker
This page should be deleted and merged with "Lurker", Those Howlers are nothing but adult Lurkers, they share the same physic traits (body figure and mouth), they howl the same way, they have the same attack and group behaviour and just like adult animals do, they wear a fur unlike the younger ones.

It's safe to assume, that young lurkers start their live within the metro and once they are grown up they climb up to the surface. Lurkers with a grew fur are probably the older leaders of the packs, explaining why they are much more rare then those with black fur.

Summarized, they are rat like creatures, who behave like wolves. 00:57, April 6, 2010 (UTC)

Proof first? Cant merge two seperate threads on just speculation though. Although it does make sense, it needs to be a fact. Kewlcrayon 04:33, April 6, 2010 (UTC)

In my eyes the game does enough to prove this without the need to call out their name.

It's not just that they look similar, they look absolutely same, just a larger version of the Lurker.

Especially the extremely distinct feature, the mouth, is the same (especially taken into account, that their mouth doesn't look ordinary at all).

Look at how young rats look like, they also have the explicit pink body skin, when they get older they grow a black/white fur, this is the same with Lurkers.

Furthermore you can see in the basement of the library a black Librarian chasing a much larger Lurker (about the size of a Howler, but no fur yet), which further suggests that the Lurker is indeed not an adult version.

The only thing that is a mere speculation is calling them "Howler" and giving them a name out of nothing. 08:35, April 6, 2010 (UTC)

I see what you mean, it makes perfect sense. I never made the Howler page, nor am I really defending it because I've never made any edits. All I'm saying is does the game actually seperate the two by calling one "Lurker" and the other "Howler", and does the game actually state what you've just said? If the game or book doesnt even call them "Howler" then yes, we should just assume that ones an adolescent and ones an adult because theyre basically the same creature with a slightly different model. If the game or book does seperate them, and doesnt give any backup saying they're the same, then we should assume that they're different. I come from a few bigger wikias where speculation is only allowed in the trivia (if at all), and actual game facts are placed on the main pages. Kewlcrayon 23:12, April 6, 2010 (UTC)

As Kewlgrayon said, this is still mere speculation. At most, we could say that the Lurker could be the child form in the trivia, but there are some differences and possibilities to take in consideration before merging the two articles. For example, Lurkers seem to live by themselves in the underground tunnels, never making contact with Howlers oon the surface. While it COULD be that the Howlers simply abandon the children after birth, all mammals have shown to protect and nurture their infants for a certain amount of time. So Howlers would be a very strange species to have a maternal system revolving around abandoning the offspring (It's true you can say that the radiation simply changed that, but all the mammalian mutants living in the Zone of Alienation still show a maternal insinct). Secondly, you have to take into consideration the simple idea of Dwarfism. Sure, Lurkers look very alike their Howler bretheren, but the Sicilean Elephant looked very alike its larger African Elephant bretheren. Yet, the Sicilean elephant was NOT a African elephant's offspring. The simple fact that there was less room and less food caused the Sicilean elephant to shrink, only growing to the size of a baby African Elephant. This theory is quite plausible for the Lurkers. In the tunnnels, there is less food and less room. So, it would make more sense that the Lurker and the Howler are close relatives. But even if this theory makes quite a bit of sense, it's just mere specualtion, and thus shouldn't cause us to create some page showing a phylum chart. This brings me to the point that while your theory makes quite plenty of sense, the developpers or the author have not confirmed your theory to be correct, so we should cause such a drastic change that your telling us to do. The reason why the two articles should stay apart goes down to the game's mechanics; the Howler has a different AI, different, model, different health bar, and different damage dealer-thing compared to the Lurker. So, as not to confuse people in the tactics and stats about the two creatures, they should be seperated until the developpers say otherwise. Whachamacallit 23:45, April 6, 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Plus the Howler could just be a mutated Mouse, as apposed to the Lurker being a Rat. We wont really know until the developers say so, until someone researches the book for some answers (if they're in there), or until I can rip the games scripts and take a look myself (This is how most of the STALKER speculation was eliminated, looking at the scripts, and if 4A was based on the xRay engine, they should be composed similar.) Kewlcrayon 01:09, April 7, 2010 (UTC)

Well the book doesn't really hand out any informations about them (they appear several times but only get described and not called any names), but neither does the game call them Howlers.

I guess the easiest way at this point would be to ask the developers directly over twitter(I don't have an account so it would be much appreciated if someone else could handle that), I do get your points, though Dwarfism is extremely unlikely if you take into consideration how close they live with each other.

If we can't merge them (I see what you mean, it's probably too confusing to merge them) I would suggest a name change. 08:07, April 8, 2010 (UTC)

I don't mind if there's a name change. But we do need a name for it; if someone could look into the files and find out what the developpers nickname it, then we'll be well-off.

It's interesting to note that the "howlers" are really the only enemies in the entire game that aren't named in either dialog or an achievement. This might support the idea that the developers intended them to be the same as the lurkers, which are named. As to the problem of the howlers not appearing to take care of the lurkers, we never really see the inside of a lurker warren. In a few occasions, it is possible to look down a lurker burrow and see other rooms or parts of the Metro that are not accessible to people; it is possible that howlers inhabit these areas and make use of hidden surface entrances, either burrows or access points that do not connect to parts of the Metro inhabited by humans. The lurkers almost exclusively scavenge rather than hunting, while the Howlers display obvious predatory behavior whether in groups or individually. I would argue that it is entirely plausible that the adults leave the offspring in the relative safety of the Metro (where they will not be picked off by a Demon, which is depicted as the main predator of the howlers in the novel) while they themselves go to hunt above ground. Since they are almost certainly mammals, it is possible that the adults sometimes go underground to allow their young to nurse on milk. This would mean that once the Lurkers attain a certain degree of maturity, they would leave the "nursery" in the warrens and move onto the surface, where they would presumably learn hunting behaviors from their elders. Of course, this really is still speculation. The sequel to the original novel, Metro 2034, will be coming out in English sometime soon, and it might include more information on the biology of the howlers/lurkers which could resolve this question. Lead poisoning 18:32, June 17, 2010 (UTC)

Watchers are essentially confirmed as adult Lurkers in Metro 2033 Redux. During Dead City, there's an area where a "mother" Watcher is guarding a brood of Lurkers, and you lose a moral point if you kill her. I can post a screenshot if necessary. Ravinoff (talk) 03:22, August 27, 2014 (UTC)

Speculation
The only reason I created the page and gave them the name "Howler," was basically because I felt the behavior from them and the Lurkers, were very different. However, I do consider them as two different species or races if you would. To put it in perspective in a different way; the rat mutated into two different beings, group A being Howlers and group B being Lurkers. Or that Lurkers are one type of rat and Howlers being another type of rat; same species, different race. Or, two coins, both same, but not the one and same coin, if any get the metaphor. Sadist King 18:06, May 11, 2010 (UTC)Sadist King

Rename this Watcher?
As I read in the trivia, the developers of the game called this animal a Watcher. As we all know, the name Howler is non-canon. The name the developers called it is the closest we'll get to a canon title, so I say that we should rename this page Watcher.71.194.40.33 14:53, July 1, 2011 (UTC)

This would be something to consider, I might run through the game once quickly just to check. I don't have any problems with changing it but it's quite a bit of work to do. Chaos ian7 04:18, July 2, 2011 (UTC)

Change name to Watchmen
In Metro: Last Light the watchers are always referenced to as Watchmen, both in game by characters and the game itself. I think that most new players will know the creature by this name if they have only played Last Light and the name "Watcher" is only used by the developer team and not by any character in game, I might be wrong though. I therefore think that Watchmen would be a better name for the page or at least mention that they are called watchmen in Last Light.