Z.O.N.A Project X VR
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the Game
MAIN FEATURES
■ Raid System. Explore the most dangerous corners of the Zone — from the “Secret Tunnels” to the “Military Town” with the Soviet radar station “Duga”, towering on the horizon.
■ Relentless dystopia of the Chornobyl Zone – expect dozens of hours of unhurried and tense survival in this bleak world.
■ Engaging and unpredictable storyline. The fate of the world will solely depend on your actions in the game.
■ A diverse post-apocalyptic world, from abandoned tunnels to urban structures with vast exploration potential.
■ Realistic handling of various classic and modern weapons.
■ Dangerous anomalies, grim atmosphere, and treacherous bandits.
■ Regular updates and expansions.
EXPLORE THE ZONE
Z.O.N.A Project X is not just a game; it’s a full immersion into the harsh world of apocalypse where every choice you make can be crucial. A diverse post-apocalyptic world, unpredictable plot, realistic handling of weapons, and dangerous anomalies – all of this awaits you in this thrilling game.
Are you ready for the challenge? Get ready for many hours of tense survival and the discovery of a cruel anti-utopia in the Chornobyl Zone.
STORY
You will find yourself in the near future when our planet has become uninhabitable due to nuclear weapons. Surviving in such a world becomes task number one. And only you can help a handful of remaining people to escape certain death. So, welcome to the Chornobyl Zone, where survival has become an art, and danger awaits at every turn. There is no room for mistakes in this world. In addition, you must be prepared to encounter bloodthirsty monsters and greedy bandits. Here, everyone is for themselves, and only your weapon can protect you from the dangers lurking around every corner.
An unpredictable plot, stunning graphics, various types of weapons, bloodthirsty monsters, and greedy bandits – this is what awaits you in the Z.O.N.A Project X universe.
DEADLY ANOMALIES
SURVIVE
You will embark on a dangerous mission to explore the Chornobyl Zone, where stealth and silence are your main allies. Survival depends on how well you can move slowly, crouch, sneak, and be cautious. You will be able to choose from various types of weapons and gather loot to become stronger and more resilient. But don’t forget that deadly anomalies can become your worst enemy.
A harsh world of apocalypse
Discover a cruel anti-utopia.
Game Discussion
Steam User 9
Z.O.N.A is a game developed by an indie dev, who I had the chance to speak with on short notice regarding a bug I found in their title.
They are a very relaxed developer, in the sense that they are not uptight or rude - which is something good considering the amount of pressure indie developers can have when making titles.
Z.O.N.A is a lot like Into the Radius, but you have monsters AND people you get to encounter in the Zones. The game is heavily inspired by the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games within it's own IP (And arguably Arkady Strugatskys' famous books that inspired the S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Metro series respectively).
The gun-play is fairly tight, which is good. Enemy Soldiers or "Bandits" are tankier then other enemies, but it's somewhat expected considering how body armor (Say level Four protection) could theoretically stop between three and five rounds from most AR platform weapons (Based on the ammunition types, of course.)
This makes being jumped by groups of armed Soldiers a challenge, something I genuinely like, although I feel the AI does have a habit of "Occasionally B-lining" towards the player - this can make the Saiga-9 Submachine gun very powerful because it can kill soldiers faster then the AK-74, is suppressed, and the AI doesn't quite have the ability to take up defensive formations and hold them for too long.
There is some evidence and scenes where they do, but the human enemies definitely haven't gone "I will hunker down here and fire at the player from distance with my allies." and keep that as 'persistent' over a longer period of time. This makes Mission 2, where you're finding a laptop, rather easy since the AI refuse to hold the only way into their compound (Being a large metal gate door with sandbags and other basic defenses.) Because the Human AI spread out to be picked off rather easily, this could make some altercations that are expected to be a challenge, a little lackluster.
I am unsure of how extensive, or how much time, it would take to update the Human Enemy bot scripts - especially without breaking stealth mechanics, but I feel that if the Human Enemy scripts were to be touched up regarding how they act in groups, and how they act alone, it might better immerse some of the confrontation between the Player and the Enemy.
This title is worth buying and playing, however, even with my little gripe about the Human Enemy "AI". I've been actively having fun with the game and I'm personally excited for their second game, Origin, which I plan to play after I finish Project X.
Steam User 5
Lot of work in this game and it's maybe not so easy those days because the game is from Ukraine.
i played 30 minutes in the quest 3 with a good computer all run well and smoothly. The animations of the guys and the graphics are great ! Sounds are great too ! Only 1 problem :) in 30 minutes i don't understood how to store my weaopons in my back was ass pain :) And as i'm motion sickness sensitive i can't play this game more than 30 minutes anyway :)
If with have a teleport option later i will retry the game but for now this game not for me.
Steam User 3
A decent STALKER VR Clone a-la Into the Radius, although it has all the jank you'd expect from a game made by one person.
Inventory slots are precise, meaning you have to put everything exactly where the game wants you to, but I was able to get the hang of it pretty quickly - but, others seem to have had problems, so YMMV. And, since it's made by one guy and that guy (presumably) only speaks Ukrainian, the English dialogue is handled by giant text boxes and AI voices. It's not... bad, but it's not great, either.
I give this game a 5/10. Just enough to get a positive review, and you probably won't hate it, but I'm not exactly holding my breath for it to win Indie Game of the Year any time soon. But maybe I'm just soft on small dev teams and their passion projects.
Steam User 3
Was a Rough start for me, got it in the EA stopped playing and let dev cook and boy did they cook the Dev really showed off with this one. This Game is the First one to Truly get the Atmosphere of the Zone in Stalker i love ITR but it dosent get the atmosphere like this one especially the Swamp, Red Forests, Tunnels, city and, Bunker omgg. i love the monster diveristy and the difficulty on some of them actaully making them a threat even if you are a headshot king. The story was a typical Stalker esc story but still was well done and the fact the dev added new features from the second one into this to make it more flushed was something they didnt have to do but made this well worth every min of my play time. Thank You. i also love the fact that its actully polished i ran into zreo bugs and gamebreaking stuff normal for ea games and vr games. the game is alo one of best running games for me in vr. Origins is Open world and i cant wait to hop in
Steam User 27
Cheeki Breeki Simulator in VR with a linear storyline
Z.O.N.A. is a linear action/adventure game with a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. style paint job. This game really caught me by surprise. I bought this game on a sale and did not really have a whole lot of expectations. I am a fan of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games and have been longing for one of these games in VR. The closest thing I could find that felt like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in VR was Into The Radius. However, playing Z.O.N.A. I feel this game is almost closer than Into The Radius. If Z.O.N.A. was open world, this would be it. This game would be S.T.A.L.K.E.R. VR.
The Game's Atmosphere
The atmosphere in Z.O.N.A. pretty much nails that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. feel. And being this is an indie game, it is quite impressive. The ambient sound effects and the graphics all give that authentic S.T.A.L.K.E.R. feel that I absolutely love. If this game was open-world I would absolutely LOVE it... and well... the developer is working on an open-world Z.O.N.A. game which does have a demo you can download it. I totally recommend checking out that as well.
VR Interactions
The VR interactions in Z.O.N.A. are, I feel, WAY better than the interactions in Into The Radius. Mainly in the grabbing mechanics. In ITR, you ALWAYS had to rely on the telepathic grab. In Z.O.N.A., you don't have to, the grabbing just feels more accurate. Plus the Half-Life Alyx gravity glove grab is WAY better than how ITR handles telepathic grab.
The Story Writing/Voice Acting
However, there are issues with Z.O.N.A. First issue is the story writing. Its not great. In fact, the voice overs, are pretty bad. They sound like AI voice overs, they lack emotion or the emotion does not match to what they are saying. Very monotone. Plus the voice acting, from the beginning train scene to the end is pretty cheesy. I think the main issue I have with the voice acting is its voiced in English with a standard American accent... which does not really go well here. If they had at least had someone with a Ukrainian accent voicing in English (or a fake accent at the least) it would have been better... OR just voice the lines in Ukrainian and just have the subtitles in English. I feel that would have been better than how the voices are handled.
Enemy AI
Another negative in Z.O.N.A. is the enemy AI. It's pretty bad. When they detect you, they jump up kind comically, and then stand there for a brief moment, then start running towards you. This seems to be the same behavior for all enemies, other than the enemy soldiers which have Stormtrooper level of accuracy. Taking down monsters is not challenging at all as a single headshot puts them down (with an exception to a few monster types). Even though, the enemy AI is not great, the enemy designs, in my opinion, are more interesting than what is in ITR. They have a range of uniqueness and I do hope their AI gets patched in a future update which leads to another positive...
Future Updates
This game does, seemingly, get pretty frequent updates from the developer. The developer does care A LOT about their game and do take feedback from the community.
The In-Game Map
Another issue I have with Z.O.N.A. is the in-game map. Currently, its kind of useless. You cannot pan or zoom in/out the map. You can only see whats around you. The levels in the game are quite big. They are smaller chunks of a semi open world, but they are decently big and I did get lost a few times. I just had to keep exploring around my surroundings and got lucky to find the objective during my playthrough. It would have been nice to see a general direction or pan the map to see the objective marker at the least.
Ending Thoughts
Again, this game really did take me by surprise. I did not have much expectations, but after my initial playthrough, I loved it despite of the problems the game has. I enjoyed my time and do plan on playing this game through multiple times. There are some branching storylines it seems, at least one more than the main one so I definitely would like to check that out. I totally recommend this game if you are looking for a linear shooter with a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. paint-job. Totally worth it, in my opinion.
Steam User 2
I just completed my first playthrough, and it was pretty good. I have previously played all STALKER games, and ZONA has a nice STALKER -like feeling.
The developer has made several improvements to the VR user interface, and the current game is much better than what the old YouTube clips looked like.
Having a backpack, chest-rig, pistol holster and separate magazines is much more immersive and playable than some other VR shooters which have just a pool of ammunition and infinite magazines.
Old version of Z.O.N.A apparently had a backpack with equipment slots (as in "Paradox of Hope" and "ConVRgence") but the new skeuomorphic backpack (as in "Into The Radius") is much better in all aspects.
One thing which bugged me was that the weapons carried in backpack side-straps or lower accessory straps were zoomed down. I think that the reason for this shrinking was that Z.O.N.A has not implemented weapons with proper folding stocks, and full-sized weapons would make it more difficult to take items for backpack.
Steam User 3
Game runs good, feels good, and looks decent,. my ONLY issue is it feels insanely hard to get the backpack back on after taking it off, other than that this game is very good!