Lately, I have seen a lot of both positive and negative views on the game.
I personally think that both sides have a point, but are wrong on other points as well, so lets look at this objectively.
Generation Zero is a non-AAA game sold for a non-AAA price (20$).
It has a small team of 8 developers and 2 community managers.
EDIT#1: Do note that the developers are kinda working on 3 games at the same time, since the two console versions are different from the PC version so their 8 team members have to balance their efforts between these versions!
1: Content.
The game has received monthly patches ever since release. Every patch has fixed a large ammount of bugs and/or added new content.
Since release, they have added:
- Option to store items using the Plundra storage box
- Bikes to move around quickly if you have yet to unlock all savehouses
- 6 star experimental weapons
- Rival enemies
- New cosmetics
The new content has kept the game fresh, and diverse. Toghetter with the content which was already available on launch it makes for a solid gameplay experience:
- Looter Shooter
- Extensive ammount of lootables
- Large weapon variation
- Weapon attachments
- Customizable character looks with clothes
- Level up system with skill tree
- Large, beautiful map
- 5 types of enemies with 3 difficulty types each
- Main storyline with missions to accomplish
- Side missions to learn about more lore
Content wise, you get a lot of gameplay for your money.
But of course, we have the bugs. The bugs that “ruin” the gameplay for a lot of players.
While we did have many bugs, a lot of them did get fixed:
- Save files used to get corrupted but most of the corruption issues have been fixed
- Mission items used to get missing often, but most missions can now be completed
- Loot drops used to be very inconsistent and often missing, but nowadays, loot can be regarded as fixed.
- Many, more minor bugs were also fixed.
Now onto the “ugly” part:
- The game still crashes too often.
- Save files might get corrupted if the crash handler is closed inproperly. (user error)
- When picking up items, it does not account for items in your hotbar or attached to guns, so you have to do some tedious actions to pick up extra ammo or medpacks that you should be able to just pick up normally
- Rough terrain and bikes don’t go well toghetter, causing buggy behaviour.
- Some road parts are considered rough terrain.
- Machine AI sometimes does not seem to work
- Machines can show buggy behaviour (including going through walls) in indoor areas.
This game was released in a very buggy state. While most of the game-breaking bugs have been fixed now, it took over half a year to do so. This is a pretty long time, but it can also be accounted to inproper bug reports.
Currently, the game is in a playable state but the minor bugs do break immersion and while I do understand that this can be frustrating, I do not think the hate towards the devs is justified. They have worked on fixing as many bugs as possible, and will continue to do so.
Note: This is not a “free pass” for the devs, since they do have to continue fixing the bugs. However, we as a community are also responsible for giving them proper bug reports so they know what has to be fixed exactly. The Plundra system (which they origionally did not plan) is a prime example of how they do listen to us, but only saying “FIX THIS” without saying what exactly is wrong and how to fix it, will not help.
Just my 2 cents.
Cat.
If I missed anything, feel free to point it out and I will add it to the list.
