- Engaging survival gameplay with unique take
- Dedicated developer, responsive to feedback
- Satisfying, diverse, fast-paced combat
- Critical bugs and frequent crashes
- Clunky UI and crafting experience
- Unfair enemy spawning, unbalanced difficulty
Emotions
Players are frequently frustrated by a high volume of critical and game-breaking bugs, leading to loss of progress, items, and bases. Poor UI/UX design, unintuitive controls, and a lack of essential quality-of-life features like auto-save and clear tutorials also contribute significantly to player annoyance. Additionally, performance issues such as lag, crashes, and slow load times, along with unbalanced mechanics like unfair enemy spawns and unrealistic durability, consistently hinder the gameplay experience.
Disappointment stems from the game's perceived lack of progress and content despite being in development for an extended period, often failing to meet player expectations. Persistent unaddressed bugs, slow and insubstantial updates, and the absence of promised or desired features like multiplayer contribute to a sense of unfulfilled potential. Players also express disappointment with core game design flaws, including unrewarding progression, poor loot distribution, and a general lack of depth in various systems.
Players find satisfaction in the game's core gameplay, particularly its combat system, crafting, and immersive survival elements, often praising its unique blend of features. Consistent developer support, regular updates, and responsiveness to feedback significantly enhance player enjoyment and trust. The game's value for money, high replayability, and engaging atmosphere also contribute to a positive overall experience.
Excitement is primarily driven by the game's potential for future development, including new content, features like multiplayer, and continuous improvements. Players are also excited by the game's unique take on the survival genre, its challenging and memorable gameplay moments, and the anticipation of future updates. Specific elements like scary zombie designs and new base-building options also generate enthusiasm.
Hope is centered on the game's future potential, with players expressing a strong desire for continued developer updates, bug fixes, and optimizations. There is significant hope for the implementation of new features, particularly multiplayer, workshop support, and expanded content like farming and base upgrades. The continued activity of the developer, despite current issues, fuels this optimism for a more complete and polished product.
Verdict
Mostly negative
Summary
Positive 47% · Negative 53%. Score: 53 / 100
Positives:
- Players find the game highly enjoyable and addictive, praising its fun gameplay, unique elements, and overall solid foundation. Many express high hopes for its future development and appreciate the continuous updates that enhance the experience.
- The game is frequently compared to Project Zomboid, often being described as a more accessible, combat-focused, or refined alternative. Players appreciate its unique take on the survival genre, diverse enemies, and immersive post-apocalyptic atmosphere, with some noting its similarities to Cataclysm:DDA.
- The solo developer receives significant praise for their passion, responsiveness, and consistent efforts in updating the game. Players appreciate the frequent bug fixes, active communication on Discord, and the overall dedication to improving the game, even after periods of inactivity.
- The combat system, particularly gunplay, is highly praised for its satisfying feel, rich variety of firearms, and strong feedback. Players enjoy the impact of hits, gore effects, and the flexibility offered by diverse weapons and equipment.
- Players enjoy the engaging resource management, crafting, and scavenging systems. The intuitive crafting system and the loop of gathering materials, crafting, and exploring contribute significantly to the overall enjoyment.
Negatives:
- Players frequently encounter critical bugs, including game crashes, save corruption, and significant performance issues like stuttering and frame drops. These problems often lead to lost progress and make the game unplayable, severely impacting the overall experience.
- The crafting, inventory, and merchant interfaces are widely criticized for being clunky, unintuitive, and requiring excessive manual input. Basic quality-of-life features like batch crafting, quantity selection, and automatic material fetching are missing, making core gameplay loops tedious.
- The enemy spawning system is problematic, with zombies frequently appearing inside player-built bases, cleared areas, or in overwhelming numbers. This leads to unfair encounters, difficulty in maintaining safe zones, and a monotonous gameplay loop.
- The game suffers from a lack of content, depth, and a clear progression system, leading to monotony and low replayability in the mid-to-late game. Character customization is basic, and there's a scarcity of meaningful skills, weapons, and buildable items.
- A severe and persistent bug causes player-built structures, homes, and stored items to inexplicably disappear after saving, loading, or even during regular gameplay. This issue, reported to have existed for a long time, leads to significant loss of progress and frustration.
Gameplay:
- Players frequently compare the game to Project Zomboid, highlighting its post-apocalyptic survival theme, top-down isometric view, and emphasis on resource gathering, crafting, and base building. It's seen as a more combat-focused or simplified version of Zomboid, with elements from other survival games like Zero Sievert and Neo Scavenger.
- Character progression is driven by an in-game skill system and a skill tree, where skills are upgraded by consuming specific items or farming materials. Players can allocate points to various talents and traits, such as 'Firearm Mastery,' infection resistance, or specific weapon proficiencies.
- The core gameplay loop involves scavenging for resources, managing hunger, thirst, and temperature, and then returning to a base for crafting and organizing. The early game focuses heavily on exploration and establishing a base, with progression leading to better equipment and easier survival.
- The game features a diverse and challenging array of enemies, including numerous zombie types (normal, armored, exploding, plant-based, juggernauts) and mutant creatures like Destroyers and Spider Robots. These enemies attack frequently, often in groups, and some areas contain boss-like encounters.
- The game offers a wide array of weapons, including various melee options, firearms, bows, and thrown objects, many with customization attachments. A notable mechanic is the manual loading of magazines for most ranged weapons, though some, like revolvers and bows, bypass this.
Performance:
- Many players report significant performance issues, including constant stuttering, severe frame drops, and lag, even on high-end systems and minimal settings. These problems are exacerbated in complex scenarios like combat, crafting, or when many items/zombies are present, leading to a poor gameplay experience and occasional crashes.
- The developers have been responsive in addressing critical stability issues, such as engine noises causing crashes and general stability problems. This indicates a commitment to improving the game's technical foundation.
- Players have noted that the game suffers from long loading times, which can disrupt the flow of gameplay. This suggests an area for potential optimization to improve the overall player experience.
- One player reported an issue where the game's resolution was corrupted, indicating a potential display or graphics setting bug. This is a specific technical issue that could affect visual fidelity.
- Players generally expect bugs in an early access title. This point serves as a general acknowledgment that the game, being in early access, will naturally have some imperfections.
Recommendations:
- The game is recommended for fans of zombie survival, open-world, and scavenging genres, especially those who enjoy Project Zomboid but desire a different experience (e.g., more shooting, less complexity). It's seen as a solid indie title for its niche.
- Many players currently do not recommend the game, often suggesting waiting for future updates, bug fixes, or a sale. Some even refunded the game due to issues like load times or specific bugs.
- Players have high hopes for the game's future, eagerly anticipating new content, features, and continued development. There's a strong desire for more frequent updates and performance optimizations.
- Players suggest various new features and improvements, including farming/animal husbandry, better trading, simplified crafting, more weapons/attachments, a conversation/recruitment system for wanderers, skill respec, and keybind settings.
- Many players feel the game offers good value, especially when purchased on sale. Some consider it worth buying even in its current early access state, giving it high ratings.
Miscellaneous:
- Players consistently express a strong desire for more content, including new features, items, weapons, and gameplay systems like farming, animal husbandry, and a quest system. There's also a call for expanded maps, more building options, and deeper progression systems like attribute boosts and skill trees.
- Players acknowledge the game is in Early Access and has potential, but there's a strong desire for consistent and frequent updates. While some note the developer is regular, others feel the pace has slowed or that the game has been unfulfilled for too long. There's anticipation for upcoming major updates.
- A significant portion of the community is eagerly awaiting the implementation of multiplayer or co-op functionality. Players want to experience the game with friends, and many believe this feature is essential for the game's long-term success and enjoyment.
- Players are keen for the developer to prioritize bug fixes and performance optimizations. Specific issues mentioned include item disappearance, overlapping items, and general game stability. Addressing these foundational issues is seen as crucial for a smoother player experience.
- Players are requesting various quality-of-life improvements to enhance the user experience. This includes better inventory management (sorting, stacking, 'put all' functions), UI/text scaling, improved item visibility, and customizable keybinds, especially for left-handed players.
