Generation Zero

As for someone who has pumped over 100 hours into the game i am Ready to write my full-blown impression to Generation Zero.
ONLY GET THIS GAME DURING A SALE
!!!EULA issue you should be aware of!!!
The Game FORCES players to accept their Privacy Policy agreements before you can even play the game. Which may lead to problems down the line.
"We reserve the right to transfer your Personal Data if we sell or transfer all or a portion of our business assets, in accordance with applicable law. We shall use reasonable efforts to direct the transferee to use your Personal Data in a manner consistent with this Privacy Policy, should such a transfer occur. Following such a sale or transfer, you may contact the entity to which we transferred your Personal Data with any inquiries concerning the processing of the data.
Your personal data:
* home address
* email
* phone
* IP
* name
* username
* Details about payments * payments and information are processed by our trusted third parties on their payments servers and their privacy policy applies."
now with that out of the way:
The Game feels very good to Play even if you are alone altough playing alone makes the game feel tedious (especially in late-game). With Tedious i mean that Robots chew through your ammo supply or collecting cosmetics or emotes from challenges or exploration being rendered partially useless.
---but let me talk about the main game---
In generation Zero you play as a Swedish Teenager who came back from a long hunting trip to witness your land in shambles. Your goal is to find clues on what happened.
MAP
The map is enormous and filled with land-marks and interesting spots. The Map overall is wonderful and gorgeous to just look at making exploration interesting. Traversing through the map is a mixture between atmospheric enjoyment and manuvering hell as the vehicles only perform well on the streets forcing you to go by foot on land if you ever need to traverse through the woods or mountains
COMBAT
The Combat is solid and feels good while having a twist by having you to consider aiming at weakpoints for effective take-downs. (A problem i have with the combat tough is that ironsights, red-dot sights and sniper sights share the same aim sensibility, making sniping or normal ADS very annoying sometimes)
the story is... Alright. It's nothing special but it's also nothing boring. While there IS a Main Storyline, i find the side missions more interesting because of better story telling
MISSIONS
While the missions HAVE story and reasoning why you are doing that. They still are very stale and boring because of the missions being practically the same (SPOILER: the only 2 missions that felt different were the Truck/Payload extraction(DLC LOCKED) And the introduction to the base Defense Game-mode)
PROGRESSION
Progression is somewhat of a incosistent curve. I wasn't able to wrap my head around how the loot system works but i'll try to explain it
As you Progress in the game. You encounter containers that contain loot for you. from Cosmetics and Resources, to Weapon Modifications and Guns.
Killing, exploring and Finishing missions grant XP which lets you level up. Leveling up in Generation Zero grants you skill-points which can be invested into 4 skill trees (Combat, Support, Survival and Tech). While some skills give you passive buffs, othersd can change the way you may approach your next enemy.
You will also find and recieve more cosmetics as you go, letting you dress up as you wish to turn yourself into whatever you want to become
ENEMIES
The enemies are creative and always a challenge to fight against. All the different Machines have also different versions of them which engages and tells you to find the new weakspot on the newer machines which may turn the every-day robot fighting into something more interesting
END GAME
in the End-Game you mostly just hunt for collectibles, join strangers are play the wave defense gamemode. Theres not much else to do aside from obtaining every crafting schematic and/or weapon.
WAVE DEFENSE GAME MODE
the wave defense game mode is a fun little way to play the game while also recieving loot. Altough it is still the same "Dumping your ammo into robots" there isn't much of a diversity or set plan for the game mode as it looks like. they aren't planning on expanding the game-mode aside from adding DLC's. Which is a shame and wasted potential :/
DLC's
While many reviews talk about the game being DLC ridden. I cannot say the same
the game DOES have a lot of DLC's but most of them are map/campaign expansions or cheap weapon packs which don't seem to out-rank the core-guns. Altough the Motorcycle DLC aswell as the Equipment DLC are a shameful act. None of them are needed to get the full experience.
(besides that the DLC's are pretty cheap considering we live in a world where decent games cost 70€ while they offer expensive cosmetical extensions)
OVERALL IMPRESSION
Generation Zero is with no doubts an amazing CONCEPT. The game is alright and is fun for every now and then.
Get the Game when it's on a SALE because then it is really worth for what it is.
(i'll also have to mention that this game is being worked on by 9 developers and it runs on the Hunter: Call of the Wild Engine)

I am a 45 yo father, probably one of the oldest people playing this game. I am a single farther to my Son, who is 14 now. My son got this game for Christmas in 2020 from his uncle, so we installed it on his computer and he started playing. By the end of the week he had 24 hours on this game. This was horrible for me, as it was already hard for me to find ways to spend time with my son, as he is always out with his friends or just watching YouTube. So i decided to make a Steam account and get this game to see if I could maybe play alongside him. I loaded into the game, made my character and world and started playing but I was stuck on what you where supposed to do. I asked my Son for help and he hosted a game for me to join. I loved it as it was the best time I had spent with my Son since my wife had died. This game has ever since brought me and my son closer again and now we actually spend time together outside the house together as well. This game reminded me that there's fun to be had in everything, and it has brought both me and my Son many happy memories.

---{Graphics}---
☐You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{Gameplay}---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It‘s just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{Audio}---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{Audience}---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ All
---{PC Requirements}---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{Difficulity}---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Significant brain usage
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{Grind}---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You‘ll need a second live for grinding
---{Story}---
☐ No Story
☑ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It‘ll replace your life
---{Game Time}---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{Price}---
☐ It’s free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{Bugs}---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ Cyberpunk 2077
---{?/10}---
☐1
☐2
☐3
☐4
☐5
☐6
☑7
☐8
☐9
☐10

Fun game to play for the first few hours then it gets boring since the objective is pretty much the same
- Good game to take screen shots
ps: recommended buying during sale only /

Today I learned that:
- In Sweden, there are two car models: Not-Volvos and Not-Saab. Freaking everybody drives manual;
- People keep a ton an ammo in their house, but no guns whatsoever;
- You may not feel heroic by riding a blue girlie bike, but it is sure faster than walking;
- There is no shame in hiding in the shed when a 10-foot robot is hunting you;
- Everybody bought that PJC sound system with the integrated record player. It must be awesome;
- The army built war robots that can be disabled with some .32 pea shooter. Maybe putting the full cell in plain view was a bad idea;
- Robots will destroy anything playing music from the 80s. I'm not sure how I feel about this;
But also:
- When you play this game, time passes so fast you may forget to pick up your girlfriend after her work shift;
- Girlfriends do not like to be forgotten.
I recommend, even if I had to sleep on the couch.

This game got some terrible reviews at launch... i didn't bother to try it.
2 years later, one friend recommanded it during a sale, and I bought it.
Didn't regret it !
I love the ambiance, the solitude, the stress when I hear some robots roaming around...
It's the anti-Ubisoft approach to an open-world: a bit barren, silent, slow, tactical, and gritty.
There's a sense of realism (although it's far from a simulation or survival game).
I really fell for the scandinavian setting, the loot, the design of the enemies and the fight they bring.

Rating: 9.7 out of 10
Do I recommend it: Yes (with caveats)
HERE, HAVE SOME BULLET POINTS
- That difficult to describe apocalypse survivor hero feeling
- Immersive environmental story telling
- Many hours of content
- Great gunplay
- Large open world
- Engaging universe and premise
- Good plot, decent script writing and dialog
- Beautiful scenery
- Nostalgic 1980s small forest town theme
- Variety of activities
- Base building
- Daily and weekly rewards
- Accommodates varied play styles
- Acceptable amount of (mostly mild) bugs and annoyances
CAVEATS
This game may not be for you. It's not a fast paced shooter, it's a slow paced atmospheric exploration game at its core; one which only incidentally also happens to contain murderous robot dogs with guns.
Don't be entirely put off by the various negative reviews if you think you might like this. Wait for sale if you're on the fence. Many of the issues from years ago are fixed and there's now a lot more content and even more to come.
I was going to address negatives, but that would exceed the max character limit for this review and this review is already long enough. Besides, I like the game and plenty of people have posted their views on the negatives of this game for you to read, so I'd prefer to focus on the positives anyway.
THE REVIEW
Generation Zero is a rich immersive universe achieved through deeply atmospheric environmental story telling. The world building is excellent, the gunplay and combat is great, the plot/story/writing/dialog is at least serviceable if not even half way decent. Should be worth easily 50-100 hours of gameplay if you like the game.
A unique nostalgic art style invoking 1980s synthwave Sweden, beautiful natural scenery, decent quality writing, decent voice acting and an engaging premise create a fun and novel experience. Watch as you grow your world from finding a lone survivor into a thriving cautiously optimistic group of NPCs (who admittedly don't do much, but it's still a satisfying feeling).
I just love how this game makes me feel. Can't well explain why, but I love it. Not without its faults, but given its faults, it's still vastly better than so many of the hundreds games I've played.
Much of the reward here is found in the enjoyment of exploration and discovery as you slowly restore humanity from the apocalypse. Shooting stuff is also fun.
This game made me jump and got my heart racing. I can only think of maybe 1-2 other games that have done this for me. This likely has a lot to do with my personal play style being almost always heavily oriented around stealth and avoiding combat at all costs. Your experience may vary, naturally.
Bugs are relatively mild and relatively few (emphasis on relatively). It's a shame that this qualifies as a plus these days but it does.
THIS GAME IS FOR YOU IF
This game is for you if, like me, you enjoy apocalyptic hero shooter RPGs like Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
This game is for you if, like me, you enjoy open world renegade mercenary games like Far Cry 3.
This game is for you if, like me, you enjoy the "slow burn" Netflix category of films.
This game is for you if, like me, you enjoy chill but still intense atmospheric exploration games with a slightly lonesome aesthetic and sad, dark yet subtly hopeful undertones like Firewatch and The Long Dark.
This game is for you if, like me, you enjoy running through the woods, sometimes on a mission, but often for no particular reason other than that it is beautiful and relaxing and it's fun to explore and discover a highly aesthetic world.
This game is for you if, like me, you often or mostly prefer to play stealth and you seek nuanced tactical combat, using terrain, natural cover, weak points, choke points, utility EMP frags, lures, etc to gain the upper hand and avoid taking damage. Sure, you can also face tank, but that's really not the emphasis of this game.
This game is for you if, like me, you hate spoilers and you enjoy just diving in and are able to let yourself be easily immersed in the world and let the environment and story take you where it will, unfolding the fear and the mystery, slowly contemplating and realizing the situation you find yourself in. If this is you, I can pretty much (but ofc not completely) guarantee you will be satisfied.
This game is for you if, like me, you enjoy feeling of being an unlikely hero surviving against all odds, fighting the good fight for your friends and family, for the future of humanity and triumphing over the bad guys. It helps if you like FPS/RPG, apocalyptic and military themed games in general, but this is distinctly not Call of Duty nor Far Cry nor Fallout.
If non-stop front line combat is your primary preference, you may be less likely to love this game as much as I did, idk? This isn't an active combat or competitive arena style FPS like Battlefield, Halo or Apex, however there is plenty of intense in-your-face combat to be had.
The bulk of the fun here is in the immersive atmosphere and engaging with the environmental story telling on your own terms to experience the world building and lore that the writers have effected. If you can use your imagination, let yourself be immersed, let yourself believe and fill in the gaps in your head then you'll be pleasantly rewarded. The story and mainline quests are an important aspect, but only one smaller part of a larger game experience in which you are an active participant; you help create your own story and add your own narrative through how you interact with the game.
CONCLUSION
Generation Zero is an objectively top notch game by most metrics, though not without its faults. Do take care in that it may not be for you or may not be your genre and that's ok, but I loved it and I think if it is your genre, you may love it too.