I picked-up the game on free weekend and a lot of my friends have debated whether or not to purchase the game. On the surface the game is rather competent, however the largest concern my peers and I had was the seemingly complete lack of a road map that prohibits us from seeing where the game may go.
The missions at the moment seem to have been designed more-so to give the player something to do as in this massive sandbox there’s a lack of other activities than killing robots and all tasks associated with doing so.
Thus are there any plans to give players a longer protracted goal other than the challenges and the trivial rival bots? Something you perhaps work toward throughout your progress in the game that has noticeable impacts on the environment around you?
Note that we only were able to play the game for five hours but in that time we encountered all variations of robots and we were able to upgrade our equipment from Worn Green weapons to Experimental Purple Weapons while looting a hilarious amount of ammo.
Also of note we enjoyed the idea of Rival Bot popping-up as a sort of random event and were curious if there are anymore of those types of thing.
The main missions take you down a whole storyline, until you find out what happened to produce this situation. The side missions are just for interest and early weapons and ammo. We’re hoping for more story in the next update. The updates do change things dramatically, and they come every month, so it is a project in progress. Best money I ever spent on a game, I reckon.
“a whole storyline” seems pretty generous. All eight lines of it?
… they do?
Not trying to pick a fight, honest, but let’s take the bikes. Sure, they’re marginally amusing, but did your gameplay really change in a major way? If so, which?
To be perfectly honest I’ve paid zero-attention to the story since it’s about as engaging as filling out cells on a spreadsheet.
Nothing in the story thus-far seems to have made significant impacts in the world such as allowing our survivors to rebuild in any-form or unlock some game-changing item or vehicle.
Hell even if they did add a vehicle our experience with the Bikes was you end-up ditching them anyway since safe-houses are perfectly spread-out from one-another and the only resource you’re after in this game is more ammo.
The entirety of our gameplay revolved around obtaining ammo. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do we’d usually suspect of this type of open-world survival-type sandbox such as loot resources to improve/personalize the safe-houses or horde-type mechanics where we have to defend some critical spot in a region until a big bad appears as a loot-piñata of sorts.
Well, I agree with most of your points, Cap-Coop. There is a story and I found it somewhat engaging but since it does not really resolve any of the questions that arose for me as a player it left me wanting more. A lot more. The ending of this game is more like a teaser for things to (hopefully) come.
Having said that I still find the game strangely compelling. A lot of the story bits are scattered far and wide and leave you to interpret quite a bit. It densifies toward the endgame but as I said it leaves you with more questions than answers. Sort of like LOST the tv series. What draws me to this game time and again is the atmosphere that is created through the graphics (austere yet beautiful landscape, day-night-cycle, weather and lighting effects, etc.) and the subtle soundtrack. To date this is enough for me to spend some hours roaming the fictional Swedish countryside.
But I can totally understand why this might not be for you. In the long run I would wish for more content (and story!) as well.
This made me laugh, but I have to say, I really enjoyed seeking out the small snippets of information leading up to the end (no spoilers) but now I’m just finishing off side missions, hunting safe houses and collectables, I would love to see more story in this game, more to do, more to find and discover.
I don’t use bicycles just as I don’t use roads. I think they’re cool nonetheless.
Okay, it’s more situation-driven than it is story-driven, but there is a story (to find out what has happened) and it’s a good twist that I didn’t see coming. I like a reason to go places, but that might just be a phase - when the world was unexplored, I did no missions, just exploration, but even then I was looking for weapons (making up my own missions, as it were).
But, as you know, I want more story, more missions, possibly in conjunction with the mainland…
My friends and I tend to agree with you. For what the game lacks in engaging story it makes up for it absolutely stunning atmosphere with fluidly generated tension. That was perhaps to most addicting feature of this game; such a feature brings to mind Sir, You Are Being Hunted vibes.
We really enjoyed the the Rival but feel it could use some tweaking. Its a bit strange to me that after defeating a Rival the region doesn’t go into some high-alert since… well… you kinda just killed the robotic response to the human threat. Also perplexing was the fact a base-level Orange Rival spawned 6* Experimental Weapons for my group. Other than that, the inclusion of the event is exciting and I hope the developers add more events like it!
Also not shure if it changes on later but our group tended to gravitate toward roads since they seemed much safer than the forests. Improved visibility, robot patrols are often very light and said patrols can’t seem to detect us before we can visually detect them. Also from a tactical point of view I found it very odd that the two instances in which we found larger robots they were pretty much alone. The Hunters did a decent job of sticking in pairs (though I will admit they were very little threat at distance till we encountered two pairs at the same time) while the Harvesters and Tanks seemed to either be isolated or only posses a guard detachment of Runners.
Tanks get lonely - that’s why they make that groaning noise. Sometimes they huddle together. I meet Hunters in packs of ten or twelve frequently. Well, I say “meet”, when I actually mean I watch them go by, safely hidden in the trees…
I was referring to the fact that there is a background story that you uncover, but next to no story that you experience, just a string of skirmishes.
Which I guess makes your motivations,
try to escape/find help
try to find out what happened/where everyone disappeared to
The first part motivates a lot of exploration/skirmishes in the sandbox;
the second part is the background story, all 8 lines of it (no hyperbole, try and write a fair summary, it should be about 8-10 lines).
For the most part I agree though the side missions are or were for me a great series of stories in/of themselves about how groups tried to resist & how this fits the Swedish Defense policy. I held off finishing the story even re-starting the game to drag it out. The ending leaves so much hope about the future of the game & more story going forward.
SPP
Yes, I agree. I’m filling my time, trying to spawn Rivals and build them up, and searching for all the Side Missions that I never did. I’m sure they’re working on the war going forwards - it was in the promo vid and it’s at the end of the present story, so I think we’ll be fine…
Because I was expecting a battle when I got into the Bunker (what with Chummy all pontificating at me and stuff) that I dropped a radio just inside, so I could get back in again: so what you are looking at is the inside of the Bunker after the explosion…
When discussing the promo video do you mean this specific section of the trailer?
All this time I kinda inferred “finding out what happened” and “waging a guerrilla war” as two halves of the same pie. But if your implication is correct and “waging a guerrilla war” is a completely different pie then that leaves me excited for the future!
This is the kind of clarification that makes me wish there was an easily understandable road map for this game.
Well, combined with the end-of-story end-screen, I think the matter is decisive - I am awaiting new missions, and new areas with the next update, or the one after that. As they fix the bugs, they will have more time and space for expansion, I think. They did the Rivals (which I am guessing was a stop-gap upgrade) to keep the Doom-busters happy and keep them in the game. It is true that even with one chum on board, even groups of Hunters become relatively easy to cope with and Tanks a doddle.
If I were them, I’d give tanks the ability to multi-target, and possibly give their rockets longer ranges. Fine, but that wasn’t the original intention, I don’t think, I think expansion was always the aim. But to expand, you have to sell, and to sell you have to please. It’s interesting that the age range on this forum is much older than I expected - I’m not even the oldest! So there is a tension there, that I think they will resolve in time - that is: balancing 1. bugs, 2. difficulty, 3. longevity (which means expansion).
As it stands it is bloody difficult for one, very easy for four. I think the world should maybe spawn enemies directly related to the number of people playing at any one time (I imagine that is possible - someone here can tell us).
Also, Tanks should, as I have said multi-target, but also have a much more effective close-range weapon system than ticks. The .50cal they carry is excellent as suppressing fire, but close range is outside its engagement envelope, so the Screamers close in and strafe - a 9mm machine gun would stop that in a trice, because there wouldn’t be time to strafe at that range. Tanks should be damned difficult even for four and for one person real thinking and strategy should be involved.
I hope they ease the tension between the competing needs soon! Any DEVs to comment? @BiddinWar??
I finished all main and side missions. Found all locations and safe houses. Completed challenges (main, side missions, and machines), maxes out my 1st character and got all achievements (Xbox).
I’m waiting for my two friends to get Generation Zero after I convinced both to get it in a couple weeks. It will keep me busy to join and help them out but other than that, I don’t know what else to keep myself busy to play Generation Zero.
Are they gonna add more achievements and DLCs in the future after more importantly, fix main bugs?
I wouldn’t mind that one bit, and would be willing to pay money for that (unless they sufficiently piss me off with more bad free updates first).
On the other hand, I’m reluctant to read much into it. It’s pretty much par for the course for open worlds that after the end of the storyline, you get to go on playing (often even against enemies you’ve previously defeated and who have no business being there again). So I mostly read that title card as, “Don’t worry, the bots haven’t all just fallen over dead after you destroyed [REDACTED], you can still go out there and shoot them for fun.”
No, no, I’ve just had an exchange with Graham on another thread and he reckons they’ve got something for us shortly in the pipeline and he even left a wink. I think we’ll be fine!
I had a feeling the game might be getting something. In the time since first posting this I’ve been able to get a feel for their press release and update schedule which excites me for what’s around the corner!
All eight lines of it? 
