Generation Zero Early Impression – What We Liked & What We Didn’t

It has been a long time since I got my hands on a good survival game where the player has full freedom and the game never ceases to amaze the player throughout the playthrough. In an age where zombie survival games have taken over the gaming market, Avalanche Studios has come up with a game with a fresh new makeover of the survival-shooter concept with a classic 80s-like finish while featuring all the modern game mechanics most gamers look for in current games.

Generation Zero is a shooter survival shooter game set in 1980’s Sweden where you play as a teenager stranded in an abandoned world hunted by mysterious forces. It is totally left on the player to play the game and uncover the events which took place. The mysterious feels and the interesting story grabbed my attention which helped me decide that I wanted to play Generation Zero Beta and form an opinion.

WHAT IS GENERATION ZERO ABOUT?

As the game goes, a group of teenagers returning from an island excursion in December 1980, find themselves stranded on mainland Sweden where nothing is as it used to be and everything is left abandoned. The player is hunted by mysterious forces which happen to be deadly machines that have taken full control of the mainland.

With no help from external sources, the player is left to roam the map and find equipment to survive and further uncover the event which took place and fight the machines. The developers allow full player freedom where you are allowed to play the game solo or team up with three of your friends to enjoy a seamless co-op experience where everyone utilizes their unique abilities to survive the machines and wage a guerrilla war against them, while constantly staying on the lookout for threats.

MY EARLY IMPRESSION

I was a bit sceptical about how good this game would be but regardless made up my mind to try it. Initially, the game offered me a character design option where I got to create my own unique character and although the character modding options were limited it was still a decent experience creating my very own character. The game starts off with very little insight into the main story and only teases the start of it while leaving the majority of the story/ mystery for the player to uncover. The game opens up on the shorelines of the mainland and after a small tutorial experience, the player is left alone to play the game in his own play style and progress through the scripted narrative while simultaneously surviving.

The pacing of the game seems a bit rushed when I considered how quickly things move from the start but it regains the balance as the player is left alone to roam the map with full freedom and enjoy the rich open world. Coming to the open worldt— the world is vast, reinforced by excellent visuals and has a cinematic vibe to it which makes the environment feel more like a cold war 80s-esque Sweden and adds significantly to the immersion in my opinion. The world has a lot waiting to be explored and yet, even more, to be uncovered. There are supplies all around and you are meant to survive by looking out for the necessary ones.

There is a lot of variety among the enemy entities and unique machines are on a constant lookout for you and your friends, they know you are on their territory and they won’t stop until they know that the threat you possess is neutralized. Since the machines aren’t friendly at all you will need some big boys and quite a lot of items to survive them. That takes us to the inventory management and gun mechanics of the game. The inventory might be a bit hard to deal with at start but it does get better as you get used to it. The gun mechanics are fluid and the shooting feels really smooth, there is a wide variety to choose from and also the game offers a big chart of gun customizations which gives you an edge in the war against the machines. You can scavenge the machines you kill for parts and better and more advanced customization, but that would mean risking your life for big fights and bigger loot which seems to balance the game. With that out of the way I would move on to the last part of my EA impression: the exploration and roaming. The exploration in this game is really fun as the movements are well paced and the animations are fluid and since the world is really eye candy and has the 80’s cinematic vibe, the game never once failed to impress me in terms of visuals. Aside from that, the story is really intriguing and the journey to uncover the events that took place keeps you going. But in the end the only objective for you will be to SURVIVE.

The Drawbacks(-)

As mysterious as the story goes the game really lacks a solid start. In terms of story, it seems really broken with the intro. I would personally prefer a bit more insight on the background and environment of the story for a more immersive start. The story does have some pacing issues as the start of the game seems highly rushed but as I said, the pacing gets better as you delve deeper into the mystery hidden in the game. The inventory was a bit of a problem to deal with in the start and took me some time to get used to, I hope to seeing it fixed and made more user-friendly.

BOTTOM LINE

Generation Zero is an extremely fun game to play as it has a really fun combat and it never bores you because your environment is constantly changing and you are left with no choice but to adapt and overcome. The journey to uncover the events that lead to the current conditions never stops and you keep playing more and more as you uncover more of the shady plot hidden in the game. The world itself is really dynamic and will grab your attention in terms of visual quality and design. Last but not the least the good old survival concepts never gets old as you are left with new enemies and it is all upon you to decide how you approach the threats the game throws upon you. In the end it is all about how you manage to survive the constant threats and discover the mysteries hidden behind the events that took place.

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