Generation Zero

This game pisses me off so much. Not because it's bad, but because it could be so much better than it is.
The devs seem to just have upped and left, leaving all bugs, flaws and quirks behind, no more expansion of the game world, leaving a bunch of areas completely void of anything more than base vegetation. This game has so much more potential. I don't feel like I want to buy any other games from this developer (unless gifted) until they come back and polish this turd up to the sheen it deserves to have.

Being Swedish myself I really appreciate the setting of this game, there are so many details that make me nostalgic and make me long for the 80's, sans the hordes of murderous robots.
I like the plot, the combat and everything else. The voice actors sound like they come straight out of a B-grade p***-movie, which doesn't really faze me. It sort of adds to the whole Swedishness of it all.
With the first addition of bicycles in the game my first instinctive thought was: Flakmoped!
This staple of Sweden of yore, the 3-wheeled miracle transportation device. I was giddy as a ninny when they added it to the game.
I just keep thinking to myself; Generation Zero MMO. That would be quite something wouldn't it,
or Generation Zero the movie? I'd watch the hell out of that.
Anyway, this game is bittersweet. If you like crazy murderous robots and fighting for mankind's survival and at the same time touristing the Swedish coastal areas of ye olden times, this is for you. :-)
If you don't like unfinished games, strange bugs with Robot bosses spawning deep within the earth (perhaps never to emerge again), through-wall shooting, homing missiles that never detonate, glitchy inventory management, vanishing ammo (almost never happens anymore), and other funny business, think twice.
My clock says 677 hours played, at the time of writing this review, so make of that what you will.
I'm enjoying the hek out of the game (especially MP with a friend), warts and all, but it still pisses me off that it's left in this sorry state.
I'm not formatting this. Pfft. :-P

Good graphics, nice bicycle riding and cool robot concept but a bit repetitive, bad inventory management and nothing that grips you to the story, you get bored easily ... It's fun only for a bit.

Generation Zero was the first and probably the best robot fighting game in apocalypse setting I ever played. Not without flaws, like driving physics, but the atmosphere of it is just amazing in every aspect, weather, robots, sound design of those robots, you can feel the mood developers went for pretty well. That's the only game which made me feel scared and tense while praying for my life being stuck inside small countryside house with enemies swarming outside trying to get to you. Seeing Arc Raiders release as another Swedish game, I instantly was reminded of Generation Zero and will definitely revisit it again with friends.

I recommend this game, but barely. Probably buy on heavy discount. It's fun for a bit.

First, the good things. The world is big. Guns and combat feel good. Progression seems appropriate. Story is OK, I haven't gotten really far in the story. I am not TOO far into the game but the machines are pretty enjoyable to fight but I wish there were more varieties. Probably are I haven't seen yet.

On the bad side, the size of the world makes it feel empty. It seems like the devs spent too much time fleshing out a world that they didn't have a purpose for, and thus much of it is empty.
After a while the machines become huge bullet soaks, and can take hundreds of rounds to kill which are heavy. Assaulting a base can spend literally thousands of rounds as it produces tons of machines and is guarded by giant turrets that wreck you. It is difficult to carry the weight of just the guns and ammo sometimes. Every gun also has its own ammo, even to the point that 9mm is differentiated into handgun and smg... so you have to carry separate rounds for each if you want to use both even though they use the same caliber. Same problem with the scopes, they are gun specific as if they wouldn't all attach to the same rail. This applies to everything from magazines to silencers too. Instead of simplifying the real world for the game, they complicated it more than the real world making inventory bloat horrible.
You can deconstruct useless things into base materials, but in almost 80 hours I still haven't found some of the materials I need to make what I want, or in some cases found the schematics for them. Like ammo. I have 0 schematics. No idea what I'm doing wrong or how to get some of these things. Other things, like mods for armor and such require rare materials so I can't build those either. I need command points I don't have to capture bases I cleared. Game doesn't explain much of this very well, it just kinda throws you into the fray and you get to figure it out. I think because the game was released alpha and development took a very long time. Players that played through development probably know all of this stuff. Me jumping in years after the fact, nothing is explained. Also some of the mods/upgrades have a drawback making them more useless than no mod IMO. It gives me less incentive to get them, less to build them, and less to even go look up how to do those things.
Because of the weight problems, and the constant trips back to town to offload the junk you collect, I quit picking up most of what drops. I collected tons of steel, lead, aluminum I can't use. Also, the weights don't make sense, like they were just lazy. Every gun weighs 2 lb. Doesn't matter if it's a handgun or a .50 BMG. 2 lb. Every attachment weighs .250 lbs. However a large metal gas tank weighs 1 lb, as does a "large car battery EMP". Makes no sense, and even at those stupid unrealistic numbers makes carrying stuff like that around basically impossible. I carried ammo and just left the rest on the ground because it's too heavy to carry around 1 lb items for long. With carry perks I could only carry about 90 lbs and guns, ammo, and healing packs are about 40-50, sometimes more when you are leaving base. I can fill an inventory after one combat if I pick up everything sometimes.
Story seemed pretty lackluster. Some machines somehow invade while you are on a boating trip and you come back and don't know what happened after a few days away everything is gone. Takes place is sweden, and something about the russians, maybe allies. That's as far as I got. After the first few quests tell you where to go, you are left with the game loop of looking for bunkers they don't tell you where they are, to find missions that don't help flesh out the story and seem more like side quests or constant dead ends. I got bored and uninterested in short order. I continued for a few of them to see if they got better, they really didn't.
Last complaint is the AI. Sometimes it detects you right off the bat at huge distances somehow, others the machines do weird things and don't seem to see you. Or stand there dumbfounded while you blast away. The compensation for this poor AI seems to be that they spam machines. Sometimes you will be facing a dozen machines at once, or what feels like a constant stream of them.

Overall a mediocre experience. It's an OK game with a lot of problems. I had fun with it for a while but am going to uninstall without completing.

I have a powerful addiction to this game truly, between the 50hrs on steam and the literal hundreds of hours on console. I loved playing this game from its infancy to its abandonment. From running for your life and sneaking by in the early game fearing every engagement, To deliberately hunting down every rival, tank, harvester, lynx, and firebird you can find in the late game. But tragically for how much I love this game it certainly has some flaws.
1. Ammo used to be semi difficult to really scrounge up a lot of at least enough to take down hordes of machines. Now it's in such an over abundance I find myself constantly overweight from just ammo alone.
2. Once you play for awhile the difficultly even on guerrilla just feels too easy, you learn fairly quick how to cheese every single enemy and not even by trying the majority of the time. Which brings me to my next point
3. The enemy a.i. is breaking constantly, (mostly with the larger enemies like tanks and harvesters) they get stuck in some area's or just lose all motor functions in an open field and don't move. Best part is when the a.i. breaks and the bug that has them shoot whatever weapon they have infinitely happen at the same time.
4. In the games' earlier development it had an amazing sense of being totally alone. Finding clues as to what happened to the entire islands' population through both the main story and environmental story telling was a great feeling. There was a point where I thought about the lack of npc's in the world but once they added the main story overhaul the npc's felt so lifeless and under done, there's only a small group of them in a single safe zone that you vist once the entire game. The way they added it just really killed that feeling of being totally alone in a robot war torn world where you are the only one left. And omg please tell Theresia to sthu she talks way too much in the early game.
5. DLC's are quite fairly priced for the amount of content they add imo, but the story add on's feel semi empty of feeling. The FINX Rising DLC just ends so abruptly with really not much more world building behind it, sure you get to actually interact with a sentient killing machine but the random power stations you find around the map have no lore behind them and sometimes are just in area's that they're have no significant reason to be there besides taking up space. The weapon DLC's are noticeably more powerful than all of the vanilla weapons which I guess I sort of understand seeing as you do pay for these weapons, but to the degree that they are stronger is quite overkill.
6. While we're talking about weapons I'll mention the changes they made to looting, finding a new weapon that was in good condition was an amazing find it was new and better and exciting, and had you using different weapons everytime you found one. And this goes along with the over abundance of ammo that you used to run out of ammo for your guns so you had to either find more via looting POI's or change to a different or old weapon you had to keep yourself from getting caught lacking. But back to looting guns, the first time I play years ago on console I went a decent time without finding either an SMG or assault rifle making early game combat harder and riskier. Now it feel's like every 3-4 loot containers I open has a 2-3 star quality automatic weapon in it really losing the sense of early game struggle and fear of getting in a big fight.
7. The base building gimmick was exactly that, a gimmick they added towards the start of the games' death. Gathering resources for building takes forever and isn't fun. Thankfully you aren't required to partake in that part more than once (for a story mission). The a.i. during the base assaults more often than not, just ignores you in favor of breaking down your base walls. As well as coming in ridiculously sized waves on the hard defense missions. Not to mention how long they last omg they take forever for no reason and the rewards dont feel all that worthwhile.
8. WHY DID THEY MAKE THE STASH BOX CARRY BETWEEN CHARACTERS IT COMPLETELY RUINS NEW PLAY THROUGHS WHY AVALANCHE STUDIOS WHYYY
Finally the good:
1. Guns feel great to use and blow up bots with
2. Game supports multiple ways of taking fights, sneaking, and escaping combat via lootable and craftable equipment
3. Skill tree is balanced and offers fun special unlockable abilities like hacking smaller machines to fight with you, improved emp affects, and a free self revive once per fight. just to name a few. (Later level exp requirements are a little ludicrous)
4. The experimental weapons and rivals updates were the best thing to happen to this game
5. DLC weapons are fun to use (despite being op) and unique
6. Ignoring the story and just pounding out sidequests or just messing around killing hordes of bots just for fun and to waste time is one of the funest ways to play the game
7. Enemies have variants and different way to interact with said variants. Using runners (or dogs as I call them) as an example, protoype runners rely heavily on their mid to short range smg making pistols and smg's effective against them, while military class runner either have a shotgun or high caliber rifle. Shotgun dogs also very often run at you to jump on you and ragdoll you making shotguns and pistols the go to. While the military dogs with rifles sit back at mid to long ranges making assault rifles and sniper rifles the best way to deal with them. There's even more variants with different fighting styles but I dont wanna spoil everything.
8. A lot of houses are copy paste but very few feel like they dont belong or feel empty
9. Added bikes to get around the map faster at the cost of being loud and drawing attention and needing fuel (aka more shit to make you overweight faster)
10. The soviet bots invading the northern parts of the island and fighting the original machines in a turf war style was an amazing add to the liveliness of the world, and a great natural progression seeing as you slowly make your way from south to north via the story and side missions
11. Runs great for all that's happening on screen at one time even for lower end hardware like mine
TL:DR Game has flaws, world isn't as great as it once was, was abandoned in a buggy state, and has under gone some questionable changes. But I still suggest picking it up if you have the cash and are looking for a game to just plug into and mess around in for a few hours. You likely wont regret it and will see the greatness though the flaws.

Generation Zero feels like three different games across its progression. Early game, you're sneaking around uncharted territory overrun by hostile robots, and you have to pick and choose your fights to survive. Mid-game, you're strong enough to beat weaker bots, but you scrape by in more climactic fights, making your victories memorable. Late-game, you'll be directly provoking fights to salvage tough robots for parts. The first two stages are the best parts of GZ, and while the late-game experience is fairly fun, it falls into a grindy and unsatisfying rhythm after a while.
Generation Zero is set in Sweden in an alternate 1980s, where every citizen has mandatory military training to prepare for a Soviet invasion. The player character returns from a camping trip to be attacked by strange robots, sinking his boat and killing his other passengers. He washes ashore to find much of the Swedish countryside abandoned, under siege, or utterly depopulated by the robot forces. Gathering what few allies he can muster from the survivors, he (and potentially other players) work to repel the robot invasion and uncover its origins.
Generation Zero has a big focus on open-world combat and fairly realistic weapon mechanics. Most encounters will happen in wide-open fields, forests, and country roads, with the occasional town or factory to spice things up. You won't be getting any help outside of your companion robot or co-op partners, forcing you to rely on your wits and limited inventory to survive. Fighting dirty is the name of the game. If you see robots in the distance when you're low on health, go prone and hide from them. If robots attack you while traveling, go for their less-armored parts like gas tanks or control mechanisms. Hide in buildings to stop larger robots from following you, ambush them with precise shots to their weak points, and craft specialized ammo to rip through their defenses. This is a guerrilla war against a massive foe, so there's no shame in using whatever you can to win!
Players gain experience from beating missions, finding locations, and destroying robots. You can improve your character's skills with each level you gain, culminating in hitting the peak of a skill tree. I went for the "Hacker" tree that allowed me to turn robots against each other, albeit with a cooldown and a percent chance of failure each time. Other skills improve your weapon handling, reload speed, overall health, and more. There are also collectibles like story-related documents to find, along with useful weapons stashed in out-of-the-way places. I'd recommend the lockpicking skill above all else, especially in the early game if you're playing it solo.
The enemy types are limited but well-designed and memorable. Each robot has a distinct appearance that, when combined with certain paint jobs, help you figure out what kind of threat you are dealing with. Hunters are large and humanoid robots with arm-mounted guns and a ruthless refusal to stop tracking you. Tanks are massive and well-armored bots that can be easily spotted, put up intense fights, and give you great rewards if they are taken down. Buzzers act like Half-Life's headcrabs in the way they leap around and damage you on contact. There are also Soviet robots that will clash with the regular robots, creating chaos and infighting that you can exploit to escape or take down both sides.
GZ has a decently sized arsenal of guns, melee weapons, and explosives. They have a quality/rarity system that impacts their performance. You'll start out finding rusty, dirty weapons with weak but manageable stats. The better options are cleaner and better-maintained. The rarest items have custom paint jobs and perform at their peak. Difficult robots have a chance to drop experimental weapons as well, which have effects like shooting electricity-coated bullets to chain damage dealt. It can be frustrating to start out with such pitiful guns and melee weapons, but it makes it all the more thrilling to find a quality weapon in the world or from a strong robot. You can also scrap and recycle weapons to use their parts for crafting, whether it is to upgrade an existing weapon or to make items like ammo.
There's also a base-building mechanic like Fallout 4. After a certain point in the story, you will be able to take bases from the machines and rebuild them into Resistance outposts. How you decorate them and lay them out greatly affects resource-gathering operations, where you drill for useful items while fighting off waves of robots. It can be intense to hold out, especially when good loot is on the line!
I haven't said much about Generation Zero's story, and that's because it doesn't really go anywhere in the base game. It starts out promising and creates a nice mystery about the origins of the robots. The two main allies you have, a Swedish soldier and a girl who survived the attacks, have contrasting perspective on how to handle the invasion and what might come of it. The presence of the Soviets also adds a lot of intrigue to the plot. However, it's easy to play the missions out-of-order thanks to how they're laid out. The big reveals near the end of the story are done via collectible documents rather than a voiced performance. The final mission is also very anticlimactic, resolving nothing and closing on a "The Adventure Continues!" sort of note. I know that the two story DLCs expand on the premise, but it's disappointing that nothing really gets resolved by default.
The late-game experience also gets tedious. As much fun as it is to carve through robot bases and their destructible walls, you can get too powerful and jaded by your enemies. Suddenly, no loot drops matter outside of 5-star or experimental ones. You have more resources than you know what to do with. Beating the story won't satisfy you if you were immersed in the plot. It just feels like a massive grind rather than the intense game of cat-and-mouse that characterized the first two stages of the game.
Generation Zero is still a good game, though. Its strong points outshine its weak points, and I am glad I played it. However, it is system-intensive, and you'll need to crank down the settings even on a good PC to make it run well. If you dislike lonely open-worlds or games with lots of traversal, you won't like Generation Zero. You might also dislike how spongy some enemies can be without targeting their weak points. If you can get past those faults, it's worth playing. I'd recommend it on sale.

I enjoyed this game. I will say I played it while the dev team was still adding things and the majority of my experience comes from trading and interacting with loot parties of 4, with random players from across the globe I would join with from the discord.
This game starts out very survival horror, and doesn't stay that way long, it eventually molds into an arcade open world looter shooter once you get high enough of a level and actually get good gear. The story line isn't much, both in way of animation and storytelling or in terms of effort.
The vast majority of my enjoyment from this game came from looting and building up my arsenal, of which I have multiples of every 5 crown and experimental weapon. Including a full original 5 crown set from the base game which is damn near impossible to come by these day. Which I amassed being and "arms dealer" of sorts, trading older players for rarer guns that hardly show up anymore due to the various gun dlc. Also, collecting rare loot drops and such. And farming them to trade for the ones I didn't have.
The game has 2 raid bosses. Base building which is fun. As well as turrets and various armor things. You also have bicycles, and various dirtbike/trike vehicles. The experimental weapons are pretty cool and unique but eventually you find your play style. You can assign attribute points to build your character into several skill trees. Which you can pick those you find the most useful or not.
You also get robot companion which can be good to offload loot and spot enemies. To me the game really shined playing with others and my brother. That is where I got the majority of my hours from.
The game does have bugs. For example, the robot doggo companion can catch onto enemy corpses and send them flying across the map, so there is a collision problem. At one point I got my robo dog from my brothers base, "unoffically" which there is an official quest for him. Once I unlocked that base myself through the campaign my dog disappeared for a while until I completed the offical quest line myself which reset it.
There are also numerous mods for all the weapons except experimental which are picked up by getting "mats" from various means, whether scrapping or completing base quest lines. All of which is higher level base buildiing/end game type stuff. You also get to mod your clothing to have things like bullet, explosion resistance, etc. There were also fun winter events where you could collect skins for various clothing, weapons, etc.
The game had huge potential, mostly squandered potential. The dev studio only assigned a small team to manage this project and for what they did they did well. However, you will see the same content assets rehashed over and over again in various orientations.
The robots are fun to kill then it become monotonous/predictiable. It would have been nicer to keep that survial horror type feel throughout the game, but after lets say level 25 that all disappears and it turns into an open world run and gun looter shooter. Which isn't bad, if you expectation is to collect loot and build your bases up. I wouldn't expect much more than that.
At this point I would recommend buying it only if it is on sale with the full ultimate bundle if the above interests you. It is abandoned at this point. I worked with the devs in the discord bringing up glitches and other bugs, and they essentially fixed the highest priority ones prior to signing out. It is functional, but isn't perfect by any means. I got plenty of hours of entertainment from this game but that was due to the community and the discord members at the time, as well as playing with my brother. If you have someone to play with I would suggest you get it and enjoy.
But it sometimes bugs me in terms of what could have been. The world itself is very nice and the graphics are cool. But there was a lot more they could have done with this. It is more of a love it or hate it type of deal. I think few people lie in between.