I’ve been enjoying this game quite a bit so I thought it’d be a good idea to share some of my thoughts. Though, let me preface this by saying I’m only 5 hours in as of this post, some of my thoughts may be answered as I get further into the game. I am also aware that Avalanche is a fairly small team working on such a large game. I’ll begin with my overall opinion of the game and then get more into my thoughts/suggestions later.
Warning: Massive Wall of Text Ahead
Overall Impression
I only first heard about Generation Zero about a month ago and I decided to follow it and eventually pre-ordered it. When I first got into the game, I found it gorgeous. The first encounters with the machines were intense especially when I encountered a horde of them. Using flares, radios, and explosive canisters I found to deal with them felt great, I felt the actual need to strategize rather than run in guns blazing as so happens in quite a few other shooters I’ve played(though I don’t actually play shooters all that often). The world’s atmosphere felt desolate, yet peaceful with a hint of tension. It was a lot of fun running around, looting, shooting, and putting together the story like a big jigsaw puzzle. The gunplay is satisfying and the exploration brings some breathtaking moments.
Thoughts
However, I noticed a few things as I’ve seen others note. The world is empty, as it should be in an apocalypse, but it was too empty. I understand that much of the fun comes from piecing the story together, but the gameplay seems a bit lacking in my opinion. The overall loop is running to x location to find loot or clues and occasionally running into a pack of robo dogos and other terrifying machines. That’s all well and good, not really an uncommon thing in most video games. But it feels like a string of fetch quests that don’t make me feel as if I’m having any impact on the story. It makes sense that a band of teenagers with guns wouldn’t really have much influence in a robot apocalypse but it gets just a little old after a while. Buildings are recycled but I personally don’t mind it that much. However, it’s a little disappointing when I can’t enter that charming cafe or restaurant. The looting as well doesn’t have much variety. It’s always the same toolboxes, backpacks, ammo boxes, and weapon crates. All we ever get are meds, ammo, clothing, gas canisters, flares, and occasional attachments. Personally it’s not a massive deal for me but it becomes monotonous, finding a lootable container only to just hit “Take All” and not even look at what I’m getting since I already knew what it was before I opened it. The slightly wonky behavior of the bots isn’t much of an issue either so I’m sure that’ll be fixed/improved later down the line. I can’t think of much else for this section so other than these things, I’m more than satisfied with what I payed for.
Suggestions
Time for what I really wanted to talk about when I was making this post! I’m gonna separate this into a few sections just for organizational purposes.
Main Suggestions
-NPCs: Alright, since I’m probably not even 5% through the story, this may come off as dumb. But the world is way too empty of life for such a big map. Sure we find bodies at military bases and bunkers but that’s all we really see of other humans. As someone who has yet to finish the story, it seems odd to me that there is not a single person other than the player(s). How can it be that there are no other survivors or people fighting the robots on their own? The player(s) couldn’t have been the only people out of town at the time robots took over, only to come back and find everything turned upside down. There should be the odd NPC now and again that the player could come across. It could be another survivor or a vendor that players can interact with to make the game feel just a little more alive(though that may be against what the devs want).
-Animals: I don’t really know what the deal is with there being no animals except birds around, but it’d be nice to see some critter skittering around every now and then. Maybe the robots did something but some animals must still be around somewhere right? Anyway, not a big deal for me. Just something that’d be nice to see.
-Missions: I actually can’t say much here so I’ll just leave it until after I’ve progressed much further into the game.
-Transportation: I heard the devs say that they’d rather not have cars around since they’d cause players to ignore the beautiful environment they crafted and I’m inclined to agree with them. However, some form of transportation would be wonderful. Bikes are one thing, they’re still fairly slow and are unobtrusive to viewing the environment, but what about something like mopeds or quads? They’d be faster than running or biking but carry the risk of alerting the many robots lurking off the side of the road. The fuel canisters you can loot off of the machines can be the fuel source for these vehicles so that they are more than just another explosive gas canister you found in some teenage kid’s room. I’d imagine that these vehicles would be rare, tough to fix or keep topped off on fuel. I don’t think they’d take too much from the amazing views around the world.
-Storage: I think that safe houses should have a shared storage system so that players can stash the many guns, radios, meds, ammo they find for said guns they don’t have/use, etc. If more items are coming down the line then having a small locker or something would be good to have. Also, again with the vehicles, they could be mobile storage in case item variety and inventory management actually becomes important in the future.
-Loot: I touched on this a bit earlier. There is very little variety in the containers we can search and loot. Already, certain items are confined to certain containers which is great, but there should be more things we can look through such as closets for clothing, drawers for ammo or other potential items such as batteries, etc. This might be incredibly tedious but it’d add some more color to looting in my opinion.
-Building Variety: I touched on this a bit earlier as well. I just think that we should be able to enter a few of the buildings that can’t be entered at the moment. This might be addressed later for all I know.
-Robots: I’m sure the devs are planning to add more robots to scare the pants off of us so there isn’t anything to say here.
I believe that’s all for this section.
Multiplayer Suggestions
-World Hosting: I think it’d be great to make this an option for those groups of friends that want to play characters solely made to play together so that they can focus on a solo playthrough if they so wish.
-Shared Loot Toggle: I’m not sure how scarce things like ammo become later on but the essential items needed to survive seem way too common. This option would make teams share and cherish the items they do have to make it the experience seem much more cooperative.
Can’t think of much else here, moving on.
QoL/Game Improvements
-Aiming Sensitivity with Scopes: I’m sure I’m not the only one a bit irritated at the massive drop in sensitivity when putting scopes on weapons. I personally think there should either be a separate option to change aiming sensitivity with a scope or keep it the same as what is already set.
-“Take All” Hotkey: It’s a bit of a chore as a keyboard and mouse player to have to always move my mouse to the “Take All” button.
-Stacking Hotbar Items: I could live with it personally, but it’d be one less thing I need to worry about as my inventory gets more and more full.
-Hotbar Scrolling: This too, I’m sure I and many other could live without. However, it’d be splendid to have either way.
-Item Respawn: Not sure if this could be considered an improvement but whatever. Items shouldn’t respawn on session startup in my opinion since that can be abused(though honestly there’s no point since most things are pretty common already).
-Adrenaline Shots and Ammo: Honestly, I find adrenaline shots to be way too common. In the first hour I already had 2 stacks of them, not to mention my much more plentiful supply of simple medkits. Adrenaline shots are also too powerful. Being able to use more than one maybe 2 per combat is simply overpowered. If given a cooldown time or use limit per battle, it’d give players the choice to either keep fighting and risk dying(if it had any penalties), or to abandon ship and live to see another day. As for ammunition, I just find it far too easy to stock up on in the early game. Though I’ve heard that this becomes a non-issue as later enemies will eat through your supply if you’re not careful.
That’s about it for this section.
Other/Minor Suggestions
-Survival Mode: I think there are people who are both against and for this so why not make it another toggle-able game mode once development begins slowing down when everything the devs want are added? More reason to constantly loot towns and manage one’s inventory, deciding between food/drink, meds/gadgets, and ammo/guns.
-Crafting: Being able to find everything makes the gameplay a bit boring in my opinion. Maybe add in some junk items that can be found and put together to create other useful items such as makeshift explosives, attachments, etc. This could end up as a whole other skill tree for character customization in the future.
-Base Building: I actually don’t care much for this feature but I know a few people who’d be ecstatic over it. Though it might not fit into how the game plays as a search to put the story together. Maybe it’d be a survival mode feature.
Some of the things I discuss might be remedied with future mods since I believe the devs were ok with them? I’m actually not too sure about their stance on mods, but they might end up being great fun as well.
Anyway, this is the end of the post. I’d be thankful(and impressed) if you took the time to read through this entire post. I’m not sure even I’d read it honestly. I’d love for people to share their opinions as well as hear what they have to say about some of the things I talked about here in this post.
TL/DR
This game has been a wonderful experience for me but there are a few things that need to be addressed in the future. As of how the game is now, I’d give it a 6/10 which is a positive score mind you. There is so much potential as future updates come out, I’m looking forward to what’s to come. With that said, cheers!