Endzone – A World Apart

I played Endzone 2 when it released and loved it. I spent over 150 hours in it. I was new to the series back then, but after taking a break for almost two years, I found myself thinking about Endzone 1 and decided to give it a try...
I jumped straight into Survival mode without even playing the tutorial. Oh boy, what a surprise!
It took me around 50 hours to build a truly stable settlement. At one point, my population dropped from 400 people to almost complete extinction. Somehow, I managed to normalize it and now that same settlement is stronger than ever :D
In the beginning, keeping your economy alive in such a harsh environment is a real challenge. The game doesn't hold your hand and sometimes pushes you to the limit. But when everything finally starts working, there is something incredibly satisfying about watching your little community thrive.
Endzone 1 has a special atmosphere. It can be stressful, but also peaceful. You can spend hours designing a cozy settlement, planning every road and building, and just enjoy watching your people survive.
If I had to choose between Endzone 1 and Endzone 2, I would choose Endzone 1. Endzone 2 has some great ideas. I love the vehicles, exploration, and improved raider system... but for everything else, Endzone 1 feels like the stronger game and with more soul.
I hope the developers return someday and bring some of Endzone 2's features, like vehicles and weapons, into Endzone 1. A new DLC would be amazing. I recently bought the existing DLCs, and they add a lot to the experience!
All in all, Endzone - A World Apart is a game with a unique atmosphere and a lot of heart. I’ll definitely keep coming back to it.

Endzone is an enjoyable but mostly unremarkable colony sim. I think it's worth trying if you enjoy the genre, but at the same time I don't think it really stands out unless you really like the post-apocalyptic theme.
Some other notes:
- It took me about 15 hours to reach 1000 citizens plus build everything in survival mode. It was a satisfying experience and I didn't need to AFK for resources to accumulate. However I don't think the game has much replayability.
- It's an attractive game with some nice models, but it's very hard to read. Buildings are often indistinct and blend together, not helped by the desaturated art style. This starts to drag the game down when you have a big settlement going and can no longer remember exactly where everything is. It also makes the scenarios pretty unenjoyable to start playing.
- People need to be manually assigned to jobs, and the game doesn't allow you to automate any part of this so you need to constantly re-assign people as workers die and new ones are born. Not being able to tell the game 'always auto assign at least X people to work in Y job' becomes really tedious as time goes on, and can lead to unexpected shortages of important goods if you forget to check it often enough.
- I like the system for scouting and exploring ruins, it gives some variety to the gameplay and works well with the post-apocalyptic theme.
- The prosperity DLC is extremely good, almost essential. It substantially expands the late game with new buildings, resources, luxury goods and citizen demands. Without it the game barely has a late game and would be sorely lacking in any kind of challenge once you've stablized your basic necessities.
- The Distant Places DLC is mostly superfluous. It adds a few off map scouting mission and a trade system which is mildly useful. Only worth it at a deep discount.

Flawed but good city builder for those who want more of something like the good old Banished.
The tutorial is hours long and shows almost every mechanic of the game, but it betrays the game by being really easy whereas the game itself and especially at the beginning is very punishing. There are bandits attacking in regular intervals but they're a pushover if you have choke points and towers. Not having a safety buffer of water, food and enough protective clothing are the factors that can end a game. The game has a weird difficulty curve that it's really difficult at first and once you've carved out your mark on the landscape and optimized everything it'll turn piss easy. But it's still a fun time and a more full fledged city builder than something like Caesar 3 that punishes extremely heavily for not building the city out of perfect modules.

Endzone in a nutshell: curse the developers, rage quit, return the next morning with coffee, repeat.

Like Banished, its learning curve is brutal. A single misstep in population growth will wipe out half your colony. But if you love deep logistics, trade, exploration, and high-stakes survival planning, it’s addictively unforgiving.

It won't respect your time or your mental health, but you'll love every second of it.

Endzone - A World Apart is a solid game in the style of Tropico.
Overall it is fun to play up to around 250-300 people in your settlement, after that you have experienced everything you can experience in this game and it becomes stale.
The scenarios in this game are bare bones, not like the fantastic scenarios in the Tropico franchise.
The fact that you can only gather most achievements in survival mode and not the scenarios really irks me.
Beware of the dlcs, they are not needed for the achievements and they don't add anything meaningfull to the game, they are just a waste of money.
Overall I give this game 6,5/10, recommended for genre enthusiasts.

I enjoy these type of games, but I'm easily overwhelmed and usually give up easily. However, this one seems to be still complex and interesting and on the verge of something I can actually handle.

I can tell you it's also a complete game with no apparent bugs. It's well thought out and I see the inspiration for more than a few Alien Dawn features in here.

If you are like most of us and equate hours of play with value-for-dollar, I think this is a wise investment. You'll lose entire weekends, I'm sure.

This game is like a more open version of frostpunk, which is nice. It can be a bit difficult but once you have a good flow, it can be very easy/fun. A shame the studio shut down and hope the IP gets acquired somehow