Did you ever get to watch it? I’m very curious about what you think about it
People have drifted away from this game. In droves. Pontus Q&A sessions are not even breaching 300 views now.
The apparel schematics are not grind-worthy. They’re meaninglessly low. Too egregiously laddered.
The reaper provides a few moments of excitement. But it feels like the spawn chance was supposed to be intentionally very rare. Which was quickly contravened by techniques spread word-of-mouth amongst us players.
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Since making the video I havent been keeping up on how popular the game is, at least judging by the dev streams. But I very much agree on what you say. So much feels like a shortcut with that big promise of getting expanded on later.
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I mean, the streams don’t have the same energy they used to. Nowadays they are just over an hour of pontus grinding and nuking machines with experimental weapons. No info about future content. No info on bug fixes. Not even temporary fixes or teasers.
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Bit of a shame, streams used to be so exciting and engaging to watch even after Graham left the studio. As much as it gets memed on (rightfully so, with CP2077 as example) it would actually be nice if there was some sort of roadmap. The revamps used to create that excitement for future possible content such as Bunker 666 and some stuff that came along with FNIX rising. But now it feels like “yeah so the story is happening, you are just not part of it”.
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I think some kind of official roadmap of what’s being planned for down the road would help out a lot.
It helps to have things to look forward to, and with each update adding more content like revamped areas, collectibles etc it works to keep the community engaged.
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I believe a few people brought up the idea of having the major events and revamps not happening until you’ve gotten until a certain point in the story, and personally, I would actually play the game again if that was the case.
Also, even though it could take a lot of work, I think that the FNIX rising DLC should take place further north in the farmlands, instead of literally right outside the tutorial
Like, that could even be a marketing point. “A world that’s constantly evolving” /s
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ayyy I’m one of them, jokes aside that is a feature that should be considered by the devs. With how much “visual storytelling” is thrown around, and honestly to a point it starts to sound like a buzzword. Anyway it just makes sense to have it since revamps have messed up the timeline or at least the sense of one.
For returning players it sorta works until you ask what part of the revamps happened before the invasion and after it. For new players, it’s worse because the revamps actively hurt and destroy the sense of mystery by spoiling or answering questions before they were even asked.
So I keep asking to myself, when does this visual storytelling even matter? if not enough care is given to it’s continuity.
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Do you know if that is something the devs is considering? I mean it feels like the “fix it later” pile has grown alot these past years. At first I kinda liked not knowing what would happen, but now that has lead to the decresed interest in the game. Like idk it feels like stuff is planned but very losely (after Alpine unrest that is).
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I hope it is. Considering we’ve not had a patch for a long time now (and that work is still being done upon the game) surely something must be in the works. It feels like once the ball gets rolling again we can get back on track for more updates.
I get the sense they really want to push that Xbox update out the door.
This.
This is a bigger flaw in my opinion then the “shove it in real quick we’ll fix it later” that’s been happening. The entire atmosphere of the game was absolutely ruined by the weird sewing together of “Revamps” that all take place at a different time in the overall timeline of the games story. Some revamps take place after the games ending. Some revamps take place before the game starts. Yet, they are all thrown together.
Even then. The devs openly market the game in a totally different way they did in the start. The new color scheme isn’t dark and mysterious it’s BRIGHT AND ACTION PACKED. The new dlc isn’t “a new spooky island that might have a few survivors” it’s WE ARE ADDING 'MURICAN GUNS and A GIANT FREAKING ARTILLERY FOR THE ROBOTS
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That is what killed my interest in the game. The stuff such as melee and how, well I can only be honest with this, awful writing compared to what came before at least. Looking at you FNIX Rising. It was sorta easy to look away from, cause while I don’t like it those things didn’t really ruin the game for me.
I kinda thought the weird tone shift and how the story was handled in FNIX Rising was just a misstep. Can go on another rant on more stuff FNIX Rising but I need to hold myself back here. But then the US pack made that vision clear with it’s marketing and how it was implemented in the game (looking at you N9 spin animation plus no in-game lore), that Generation Zero is shifting its market audience. For me that only got worse with the Resistence update as I explained it in the video. Long gone is the dark grounded tone where mystery was the name of the game and now wacky who ho adventures cheesy fun time was introduced.
The worst part is how this is combined with the half done fix it later features. My personal theory at one time it was decided to toneshift GZ in both gameplay and story to appeal to a more mainstream audience, because it was seen that the grounded dark tone didn’t work. But it did, it was the new content features that wasn’t being fixed being the real reason that people didn’t return or get the game at all. The core gameplay loop is so repetitive and it doesn’t try to innovate itself.
It’s that mix of still doing things half done and massive marketing tone shift that to me, feels like this isn’t the game I bought almost two and a half years ago. I get that games progress over time, but I don’t think GZ has done it they way it should have been.
Edit: Forgot to mention that I really really loved this game, even before Alpine Unrest came out. Just the fact that it takes place in my own home country felt refreshing. Hell I still want to love it, all of my reviews and crititsm/feedback videos are proof of that.
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As quite some people seem to miss the atmosphere of the pre-FNIX-rising game world: Could @Avalanche_Pontus (or any dev with time on his or her hands) chime in about the plans they have for the future? Is there any interest in rolling back some changes to fix the lore? Is there a realistic technical foundation for several ‘stacked’ versions of changed landscapes that get phased in and out depending on story progress, or does the Apex engine not allow for this? And is there any want or need to get the story back into a coherent, chronologically sound adventure?
And, as far as I’m concerned: Is there any possibility to make use of the Steam Beta functionality to offer (at least for PC users) a choice of several game builds to download and play? Maybe ask around which versions of the game are requested and offer them as an opt-in choice? Some might have noticed I’m playing the April 2020 version as I kept a backup of it, but it precludes getting the Halloween rewards etc, and one borked file would be the end of it… I’d personally love to go back to v. 1.0 just for sh*ts and giggles, and I think it’d be of interest for others too.
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This is an amazing idea. I know at least two more people who would love to play the infamous April 2020 update although it misses out on some collectibles and other new stuff.
For example “The Long Dark” has it’s major releases available on different branches where you can play the earlier stages even that one with the angular wolves 
I really would love to play the initial version (for some reason it was almost bug free for me) the version when Himfjäll was released and of course that ultrahard version.
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I second that, seems like a reasonable compromise for those who aren’t a big fan of its current direction and wouldn’t have an impact on the audience the game has shifted to.
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Only issue is, that would only apply to a fraction of the playerbase. There are stil the dozens of console players who also miss the old Generation Zero who would have no way to do that because of how consoles happen to work.
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Although I really like the game this needs to be said.
While some above critics are well earned and i even agree with them, we have a more serious problem that originated from various situations.
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In 2020 PS4 players were in the same place as Xbox are now, the difference was that the update finally appeared on the 5th of November, the same will not happen tomorrow for them.
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At that same date a bug that appeared to some users on at least both consoles has still not been fixed Game crashes when traveling to/from Tarnboda Skans to nearby areas - #26 by Lazur327 .
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The remaining regions have still not been revamped
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It´s been many months without an update or simple fixes and Xbox still has not received the last DLC and bug-fixes.
This is not the way to go, most players at all platforms lost interest in the game and moved on, there is zero news from the devs, including for next gen upgrades which some were looking forward to.
They intend to bring some new weapons and features but base building is quite limited, missions are few, the game world is still not finished and there aren´t many players still playing it.
Although the next update will bring some interesting things and satisfy some Xbox users it will not fix everything.
Generation Zero will always be a very unique and interesting game for me, but I honestly dont expect much more now and it´s sad because they could have made so much more with the GZ project.
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Yeah that is understandable. Consoles players have had it rough, but I’d still want that feature of being able to change what version of GZ you can play for PC. Better to have it than not.
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That’s something I probably should have talked more about in the video, because releasing GZ to xbox one and PS4 I belive was a mistake, a great one at that. It’s almost 10 year old hardware at this point and thus GZ has to build around that and like you said, that has not gone very well with all the issues and delays.
With the devs being about 30 people I’m not sure if that choice of platforms was their choice or management, but GZ is self published. Either way in terms of the decision to release the game in a barebones and buggy state plus a last gen console release, I can only say they bit more than they can chew.
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I dont intend to push this topic but studios with less people managed to update games, including on these “old systems”.
2 updates on an entire year are not sufficient, at least not when the game feels half finished and still has game breaking bugs.
Games keep coming to the “old platforms” and besides cyberpunk they work pretty well, there is always the option to cut some small details and features or just have worse(still very good) graphics and visuals.
And the question remains, are those 30 persons actually working on the game? it does not look like that but i dont want to look like a critic, it´s a simple and logical observation.
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