First of all, hats off to the people at SR for creating the unique experience GZ is. Despite its many buggy flaws, me and my friends instantly fell for the biggest brownie point of it all: The moody spirit of coop-adventure within one of the most beautiful gaming environments ever created.
I wonder why they haven’t fixed the multiplayer mission progression system yet, as it clearly breaks the advertised seamless drop-in/drop-out option – but hey, what the blazes do I know about coding? Maybe it’s easier to do those things when you’ve got the budget and HR of Bungie or Supermassiv.
I also don’t know how well GZ monetizes – maybe not that good, I suppose?
Ok, why do I come up with this? Because I’m afraid of the studio stopping to enhance the world and map like they did with the anniversary update. Those changes they did in terms of POIs/Scenes are crucial to the overall experience and immersion – at least if you play like me and my pals, guided by excited inner children.
I wish they’ll have the resources to continue the taken path, get rid of crucial bugs which still remain within the game one year after release and revamp the whole map like they did with the starting isles. When looking back at the history of Avalanche in terms of communication politics and devs gone deadly silent, honestly I’m mildly concerned if those wishes are going to be answered. Taking into account the upcoming game they’ve teasered as well (which I’m also stoked about), I’m really curious how GZ will end up.
Bigger updates, like Alpine Unrest DLC or added POIs in Archipelago region takes time.
Btw, March '20 update wasn’t the 1st revision of Archipelago POIs, it was 2nd. 1st was in May '19 update.
There are a reason why there haven’t been any dev streams lately. It’s called COVID-19. However, devs haven’t stop the communication with us. Besides the April '20 update notes i linked above, devs have also regularly released letters for the community. Latter ones are all readable from here: https://generationzero.com/en#blog
thanks for all the information you’ve collected and shared within the forum, awesome work!
To be clear: I never intended to hate on the game or the devs, just been pondering on the possible amount of upcoming content before post production will reach its end of maintenance in favor of shifting capacities to further projects.
GZ is Avalanche Studios (Systemic Reaction) in-house project with their own Apex Engine and which was also self-published, rather than using 3rd party publisher. “A pet project” to say so. And due to that, i don’t think the support for GZ would be dropping any time soon. There is still a lot to expand and improve upon, without 3rd party publisher breathing down or pulling the plug.
Also, whole Avalanche Studios Group is actually quite big, about 320 employees but the team who is working with GZ is small, around 30 or so. Due to that, i don’t think the new game, currently in the works by Systemic Reaction, would hinder GZ’s development in any way.
