No, just another clickbait gaming article.

Atomfall is compared to STALKER in the article refernced in the first paragraph. This article is just stating the author disagrees with his coworkers original assessment

It wasn’t intended to be like it, but in a way it did have some of the same ideas. It did have the camp clearing parts with what was supposed to be a pretty sophisticated AI faction system. But the system never really worked as intended without mods, so the whole faction battle system just felt super scripted (like, nobody would come and take back control points after you capped them, even though they were supposed to until you completely destroyed the opposing faction). It’s even more fleshed out (and actually works) in Clear Sky. Which is why CS has been my favorite STALKER since it came out.