I wrote up a review for Steam this morning, hope it has some value. Great game.
The Good.
To explore a time and a place like this is a rare and beautiful thing in a game, and while not perfect, Generation Zero is a game that has excelled in so many areas. The map itself if designed with fantastic attention to detail, it’s massive and offers hours of exploration value. The visuals are breathtaking, while some interiors get a little repetitive, if you play this game with some good friends it would be impossible to be disappointed (I paid full price with no regrets, other may want to wait).
If I was to sum it up and use a word I don’t usually associate with video games, it’s “cool”, Generation Zero feels cool and it’s because of the little details. Take for example the bicycle, a fantastic design choice that lends itself perfectly to the era and setting, but also to the stealth genre as a whole. You can dismount the bikes at speed if needed, fire off some shots while the bike continues before eventually losing momentum and toppling to the floor - watching this unfold with a group of friends is a sight to behold, I assure you. Exploring with flashlights is great, perfect pitch black interiors illuminated by tight beams of light is immersive and well-executed.
The Animations are truly fantastic, sprinting is badass, you saw it already in the trailer. The “bots” look great moving and sprinting, and it’s satisfying to nail a shot on their weak-points. I was honestly surprised how realistic they seemed, explosions are great, movement speed and A.I. flanking makes for reasonably interesting combat.
There are lots of different clothes to collect along the way, from gloves, gold necklaces, Adidas jackets, high-tops, etc. Beyond default outfits things tend to look pretty silly when you mix and match, I can’t quite put my finger on it but it really needs some improvement.
I never personally dabbled with Fortnite (and I’m sorry for mentioning it) but for the first time I got to play with a crazy array of emotes and I spent at least 20 minutes p1ssing about with friends. I honestly wish more games had silent in-game emote systems for comms, yet in a game like this it doesn’t feel entirely necessary.
The music is great, really great tempo seems to match with the pace of combat - at it’s got some stranger things Synthwave vibes going on, and who’s gonna complain about that? The sound design in generally great and very atmospheric, gun sounds are crisp and resonate appropriately when moving indoors.
I takes elements of S.T.A.L.K.E.R DayZ, Stranger Things and Dark (the lesser known German Netflix production), and it takes that atmosphere and it stretches it across jaw-dropping seasonal landscapes.
The Bad.
I’ll mention a few negatives, and will probably come back here to adjust my review as I learn more about the game. OK so looting is pretty miscalculated, something about it feels off. My friend was frequently struggling to get ammo, while I hadn’t given it a second thought. The UI needs to be tweaked, when I am looting I don’t want to click ‘take all’ with my mouse or enter, and I don’t always want to hold ‘e’ to interact, there is no good reason doors aren’t one tap (what is this - the 1980’s!?).
There are place in the map where collision boxes don’t match with textures, and sometimes taking cover behind something such as an overturned car, doesn’t provide the cover you would have expected. These things are a shame but really not surprising considering the scale of things. Also my friend wanted me to mention he wanted basic objects in rooms to have physics, presumably so he could throw tantrums and throw 
everywhere. Windows aren’t breakable (that’s a pretty big yikes from me). Gunplay is pretty good, but definitely needs some tweaking (gun size, scoped sensitivity). I would also like toggle crouch and an option to walk as seen in the trailer.
Some area design choices left me pretty befuddled; opening some gated areas in the tunnel had me hunting for some objective that I thought I had overlooked should I turn this lever? no, any good reason for this opening this massive gate, no. Also the direction that some doors open is just impractical, doors set at 90 degrees to each other will both open out, leaving a small space to walk between.
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Some Suggestions.
Apart from some things mentioned above, I feel like this game keeps its value - absolutely. I just feel it needn’t have gone this direction and could have done more by doing less. However here is a small list of things I would love to see:
The ability to prone, running speed should be reduced, backwards running speed should be dramatically reduced, objects placed (particularly in combat zones) should be better configured to use as cover, reduce gun size and consider having a weapon lowered stance when not sprinting, bicycle freewheeling (you should keep rolling for much longer than currently), more weapon content in general with a bigger inventory with smaller icons and larger stacks and the ability to sell things.
If any developer ever reads this and would like to hear some feedback on several ideas for game modes I would love to chat with you, just hit me up.
