Earthfall Review Summary

Enjoyable Co-op Experience: Players generally find the game enjoyable, especially when playing with friends. The co-op experience is highlighted as a major positive, contributing to overall satisfaction and replayability.

Left 4 Dead Spiritual Successor: The game is frequently compared to Left 4 Dead, often seen as a spiritual successor or a modern take on its formula. Players appreciate the familiar gameplay loop but note the unique alien enemies and additional mechanics.

Innovative Gameplay Mechanics: The game introduces several innovative mechanics, such as deployable barricades, mountable turrets, and 3D weapon printers. These features add strategic depth and distinguish it from similar titles.

Solid Gunplay and Weapon Variety: Players appreciate the solid gunplay and diverse weapon selection. The weapons feel well-balanced, and the game avoids excessive reskins, offering a good variety of distinct firearms and melee options.

Excellent Invasion/Horde Mode: The 'Invasion' (Horde) mode is a significant highlight, often considered superior to the campaign. It provides an engaging survival experience with larger areas and is a popular way to increase kill counts.

Poor AI bot performance: Player-controlled bots exhibit extremely poor AI, often making detrimental decisions such as ignoring commands, failing to revive teammates, wasting resources, and getting stuck. This significantly hinders gameplay, especially on higher difficulties, making solo play frustrating and nearly impossible.

Unpolished core gameplay mechanics: The game suffers from unpolished core mechanics, including clunky melee combat, unsatisfying gunplay with poor feedback, and mediocre animations. These issues contribute to a general feeling of a rushed or unfinished product, impacting the overall gameplay experience.

Lack of content and updates: A significant lack of content, including few maps, limited replayability, and no meaningful progression systems, makes the game feel unfinished. The absence of ongoing developer updates further exacerbates concerns about its long-term viability and value.

Inferior to Left 4 Dead: The game is frequently compared to Left 4 Dead, often unfavorably. Players feel it lacks the polish, content, and overall quality of L4D, appearing as a less refined copy rather than a strong alternative.

Technical issues and optimization: The game experiences various technical issues, including crashes, performance drops, and poor optimization. These problems lead to a less smooth and enjoyable experience, with high system requirements for the visual quality offered.

Diverse Gameplay Modes: The game features two primary modes: a story-driven campaign with objectives like defending points and reaching escape zones, and an 'Invasion' horde mode. Both modes involve intense wave-based combat against aliens, with players utilizing defenses and scavenging for resources.

Challenging Difficulty Curve: The game offers a wide range of difficulty settings, from easy to 'Overwhelming,' with higher difficulties presenting a significant challenge. Players note that the game is easy to learn but difficult to master, requiring strategic thinking.

Dual Progression Systems: The game incorporates a progression system with two main unlock paths: one for cosmetic items via experience and levels, and another for permanent perks and passive abilities unlocked through achievements and challenges.

Ample Map Content: The game features a substantial amount of content, including 11 campaign missions and 5 Invasion mode maps. Each mission can take a considerable amount of time to complete, offering a decent playtime.

Team Revive Mechanic: Teamwork is crucial as players can be downed or captured by enemies, requiring teammates to revive or rescue them. This emphasizes the cooperative nature of the game.

Reasonable system requirements: The game's system requirements are considered decent, with detailed specifications provided for various performance tiers. VRAM and general CPU/GPU usage appear to be within reasonable limits for the reported settings.

Game fails to boot: A small number of players reported being unable to boot the game at all. This critical issue, while not widespread, prevents affected users from playing.

Requires stable internet: Players noted that a stable and fast internet connection is beneficial for the game experience, implying online features or real-time data transfer are important.

Buy on sale, not full price: Many players recommend purchasing the game only when it's on sale, as they feel the full price is not justified. The game is seen as a good value at a discounted price, especially for casual play with friends.

Best played with friends: The game is highly recommended for co-op play with friends, with many reviewers stating it's not worth playing solo or with bots. The multiplayer experience is highlighted as the primary source of enjoyment.

Afterfall mod recommended: The 'Afterfall' mod is strongly recommended by players, suggesting it significantly improves the gameplay experience. This indicates potential issues with the base game that the mod addresses.

Backup game saves: One reviewer specifically advises players to back up their game saves, implying potential issues with save data integrity.

Keybinding suggestions: A specific suggestion was made to rebind the 'shove' action to a side button or the scroll wheel, indicating a potential usability issue with default keybindings.

Future content and development: Players are optimistic about the game's future, acknowledging its Early Access status and expecting significant content additions and improvements over time. The current price is seen as acceptable given the promise of future development.

Cosmetic DLCs and skins: Players discuss the availability of DLCs for cosmetic items like weapon and character skins, noting that these are visible to all players. There's also an expectation for more such customization options in the future.

Affordable price point: The game's price, especially when on sale, is frequently highlighted as a positive aspect. Many reviewers purchased it at a low cost, which contributes to their satisfaction.

Developer communication and feedback: Players hope the developers will actively listen to community feedback and provide updated development plans. There's some dissatisfaction regarding developer communication.

Game save path specified: The default save path for the game is provided, which is useful technical information for players.