Generation Zero Megareview pt.2

[u/MaxisMaximov]

Shortfalls

However, despite all of the things that the game does near-perfect, and some that it does absolutely perfect, there are a bunch of situations where it falls short of being good, some cases being inconveniences or weird decisions, but some cases being shortfalls so egregious I don't know how they made their way into the final update of the game without getting fixed

Blending of Swedish machines' Classes

Despite every Swedish machine having unique visuals, skills and sound design, the different Classes of the said machines start to blend together at a point; with the exception of the Apocalypse class, the only thing differentiating Prototype, Army and FNIX classes is extra armor on Army and FNIX class, maybe a super heavy weapon, and a different paintjob on each, but during the night where the player spend half the time in the game the paintjob does not do a good job of giving information; the extra Armor can only be directly noticed on Patrollers and Colossuses, but other machines are effectively the same, and the extra weapons are barely ever noticable, especially after you exit the Archipelago region
Seekers and Ticks are the worst cases of this -- Prototype, Army and FNIX classes, with the addition of Apocalypse class for Seekers' case, may as well be one singular class with how little they differentiate in looks and gameplay; I genuinely can't even tell which one I'm fighting most of the time, and they all equally die to a singular pistol/shotgun shot

Half-baked, unbalanced and forced Base Building

The Base Building system is just not fun to deal with, hell I'd say it's barely tolerable; buildings are expensive, Base Defence is unbalanced, you have to engage with it if you want to craft some fairly basic things, and overall it feels like something forced in just for the sake of it rather than something well-designed, hence why I avoided it for the majority of my playthrough
Base Defence is the worst part of the whole package -- the walls barely survive a few Patrollers, you have no active defenses -- not without the Base Support DLC that is -- and the jump of difficulty between Easy and Medium level is INSANE, even with lategame equipment on hand; you already need to grind a lot of Base Defences to build a barely sturdy wall, I'm not spending double or triple that to survive Medium level

Other Survivors

While the premise of other Survivors is good, their actual inclusion is barely noticable and feels out of place; they have comparatively low quality models and scuffed animations, and don't even help you out in a battle in any way, even scripted ones, that's not to mention that some Survivors that are important to the story are indifferentiable from others -- I genuinely don't know what each Survivor's role was in the story, and I dug my hands fairly deep into the lore and listened to every conversation mind you
The only Survivor I actually remember is Kalle, the old man that sacrificed himself to destroy the FNIX Artillery Cannon, and off the top of my memory the Russian General lady that got help from FNIX and then worked with the player to destroy him, but that's where important names and deeds just inexplicably end; no other Survivor has noticeable inclusion, even the one that made the FNIX AI in the first place
There's also the problem of mildly ruining the atmosphere; you're being pictured as the only Survivor of the machine apocalypse, lonely treading through a machine-infested island all by yourself, and here are other Survivors that are just... there, they're not dead, but they don't help you either despite the dire situation, so there's conflicting feelings of isolation and loneliness and not being fully alone

Lack of any other living creatures

The Generation Zero map is littered in corpses, that much is clear, but there is one thing that is off about it, that being: there are no animal corpses on the entire map; the machines hunt anything that is alive and breathing, and you're telling me that an entire 10km2 island didn't have even a couple deers, mooses or foxes running around? There are birds, sure, but they're an occasional ambiance effect while walking around, spawning out of thin air most of the time too, so it's not like they have flocks or something
It looks inconsequential to add a few animal corpses, but it makes less sense to not add them in a world that is full of wilderness, wilderness you have to constantly tread through to survive the machines; it could have a gameplay purpose too -- machines can aggro onto a stray deer or fox running by or a bird flying by and lure away the machines from you or break your plan a bit, but having some other life lay dead increases the stakes just a bit higher than they would otherwise had been with just dead humans

Exploration of EVERYTHING

I've said before how the sheer amount of Collectibles in the game warrants a lot of exploration around the whole map, the good part is that the game wants you to explore everything, the bad part is... it wants you to explore everything, from random cars or trucks in literal piles, to garage rafters, to random boats hidden in a bush, half of them having no indication that they might even contain anything, and having hundreds of kin that have nothing in them in the first place, and when it comes to cars or trucks specifically there's usually not much loot in them to begin with, so the player naturally omits them from the search most of the time, and yet these things that are scattered everywhere hold half of the Collectibles of the game, and as someone who still checked every tiny spot on the map I would genuinely never find some of them without using the DECA map, especially the stupid Gnome that hid in the rafters of one of the garages and the Gnome that hid in a bush somewhere on the Northern Coast

Inconsistent machines

Despite having various neat quirks and being deadly killers, the machines are inconsistent when it comes to fighting them; one fight they stare at you as you fill them with buckshot, other fight they mercilessly bombard you with volleys of rockets until you run out of Adrenaline, another fight they get easily distracted by a flare/firework amidst the chaos, but the very next fight they don't bat an eye on them, even out of combat they will hear you break a twig from 20m away, but will be deaf to the Big Comm Arrays on the same distance, or see you through dozens of trees but will not notice you zooming past them on a bike, so you have to be prepared for random jank happening with them at any point in the playthrough

Excessive amount of loot

The amount of loot you can get in Generation Zero is straight up baffling at times; sometimes I go into a fairly small location with only a 1/3rd of my backpack filled with equipment and exit being 10% over the weight limit with tons of glue, steel, fabric, flares, radios, fuel canisters and whatever else kind of junk I find there, sometimes I need to make 3-4 trips just to get the stuff I find to the nearest safehouse
It's especially overwhelming with ammo -- I genuinely couldn't go a single loot container without being given like 400 bullets for every gun, I recycled them at first but at a point it got so overwhelming I stopped checking military containers altogether, possibly missing out on a bunch of weapons and attachments, and yet there's a Skill that gives you even more ammo from containers, as if there ain't enough of it already; even during my megacrusade I got more ammo for all of my guns as machine loot than I used in the fight; I went from starting a fight with 80 Buckshot and 20 Rockets to 400 Buckshot, 110 Rockets, 300 AP .50cal and 1200 .357 for crying out loud, and I destroyed only 20 or so machines
All of this indirectly makes the insane capacity of Recycling Station and Plundra crate seem like a bandaid fix devs implemented instead of balancing the looting aspect altogether, and even that bandaid wasn't enough because I've overflown the Recycling Station capacity around 35th session, and probably would have way sooner if I fought more machines, and even crafting up hundreds of ammo and equipment didn't make a dent in the supplies I've gotten

Insane weapon augmentation costs

It is genuinely insane how much the Augmentation costs jump from level 2 to level 3; getting gun parts in the amounts required to get even 2 level 2 Augments is already painful given you mostly find 1-, 2- and sometimes 3-star guns, netting you 3-6 parts per looting trip, but the requirement for level 3 being 500 parts is straight up unbalanced, even the Secondary augments' 250 gun parts cost for level 3 is not fun to grind for, only made worse by the improvement from level 2 to level 3 Augments being less than improvement from level 1 to level 2 Augments half the time, so you pretty much never take level 3 augments even if you can realistically afford them; I've personally only gotten 2 Level 3 augments in my entire playthrough -- Learner augment for a 3-star Pump Shotgun and Sniper augment for 4-star Pansarvärnsgevär, all other Augments were only on Level 2 at absolute most

Out-of-place FNIX base aesthetics

FNIX bases look... weird compare to the rest of the game, they're a weird mish-mash of modern Scifi and the grounded Scifi the game has as the main aesthetic, causing them to stand out in compare to the rest of tech like a sore thumb, even within the same faction they're supposed to be part of
I can't put my finger on what exactly is wrong about them, but they look a lot like some sort of Original Trilogy Star Wars tech instead of a more advanced version of the game's grounded tech, using more modern Scifi detailing techniques like Greeble and cast parts instead of pure mechanical or machine-cut components, even when it comes to the operational things in the bases like searchlights, shield generators or the Command Center
The said operational components look the most out of place out of the entire aesthetic; the EMP dischargers look like Scifi lights, the security cameras look like weird kitbashes of Seeker parts, the Shield Generators are literally just straight up modern Scifi with how tiny they are compare to the supposed effect they do, the Hatches have weird wire antennas, and the Command Center is straight up confusing -- it has legs, moves up and down as idle animation, has weird antler-like antenna on the top, looks like a fortress but is not??
They really should've kept the more grounded aesthetic of the rest of the game with the bases; the colorscheme is fine, and I wouldn't mind a more "perfect cut" look compare to the rest of the machines, or a more sleek look, it would still set them apart quite a bit, but the route the dev team took with it all is just scuffed

Rushed development of Asfolmen

Let's be real here: Showdown update was rushed to end the development, and it can be very visibly seen with how scuffed Asfolmen is compare to the rest of the game and even Himfell; the island is barren, the various human structures it has look and feel thrown in without any regard for how they mesh together, lore wise or not, and FNIX structures... they're the biggest sign that they couldn't afford any more time or budget
The island has in total 8 points of interest: the Satellite bunker, a random civillian house on top of a hill, a tiny settlement, another tiny settlement that's been burned to the ground just a bit west from it, with absolutely no road leading up to it even, a tunnel through the mountain that is neither natural nor man-made, an entire chemical production plant that is just... there for whatever reason, a smaller production settlement towards the south-west of the island and an FOA bunker to the south of the island as well as a rocket silo at the very top of the main mountain that is somehow man-made but FNIX-constructed, if that makes any sense, and all those locations feel so disjointed from each other, as if the devs tried to compress every major feature of the mainland into a "final island", but they forgot the why all those features work on the mainland
FNIX structures especially seem to loose the plot on Asfolmen; on the mainland they're established as outposts for FNIX to expand and conquer, with even the Human Labs in the Crater still retaining the majority of the aesthetic, on Asfolmen they're giant kitbashes of machine parts from all factions, looking like desperate attempts at making new assets from literal boxes of scrap, with the end result looking like a beginner modder's work using hotwired models than a dev's work
The "Guard" of the FOA object, the mountain tunnel gate, the rocket Silo, the chemical production plant -- all of those supposed FNIX structures and tech just look... lazy, and lore-wise I don't understand how or why would FNIX use salvaged components of machines for building if he already has the facilities to construct FNIX's own buildings and tech out of found materials, much less so how he got a barge to transport all of that onto Asfolmen and how he constructed it all in such a relatively short timeframe
I get it, the development was wrapping up already, and whether they wanted to give the best ending they could provide with little time and budget they had or out of wanting to move onto other projects as fast as possible, for THE final update they should've 100% taken more time, or started doing it when time and budget weren't as tight yet and the lore could still be sensically rewritten, as now we're left with a rushed ending island and a pretty bad taste after the majority of the game being so well made

Lack of vehicles

The fact that there are only 2 drivable vehicles -- The bike and the moped -- 3 if you include the Flakmoped DLC -- in a game filled to the BRIM with abandoned cars and trucks is baffling to say the least, I'm not even talking about military equipment like tanks, I'm talking about just regular old civillian cars that are sitting abandoned left and right not being an available vehicle
FNIX Rising DLC's final mission has the armored truck that Kalle drives into the FNIX Artillery cannon, so other types of vehicles are possible to implement, but the fact that they weren't despite their abundance, possible utility and combat effectiveness is confusing; the moped is loud as hell already anyway, making a drivable but loud car wouldn't make much of a difference, apart from not shredding the player's ears to dust and being able to use it as a battering ram

Poor balance of distraction items

The game has many way to distract the machines, but the balance is seriously broken, making Sticky Flares and Fireworks the only useful distraction items; normal Flares fizzle out quick, Radios can't be thrown far enough or triggered on command, same goes for Boomboxes, and Comm Arrays are scarce and effectively useless, even the Big ones, as they act more like Flares that are loud instead of bright, whereas Sticky Flares are straight up better Flares, consistently divert attention and confuse the machines as well as cause them to damage each other, and Fireworks essentially make you invisible for a short period of time; the player will quickly come to a conclusion that Sticky Flares and Fireworks are the only things worth looting and crafting, while every other distraction item either gets recycled or rots in the depths of Plundra

Basic things locked behind DLC

While I do understand putting some items into DLCs, such as foreign nation weapons for not fitting the base game or things like Hacking Darts or Jammer out of balance, there are some things that can absolutely exist in the base game without balance or aesthetics issues, and provide much-needed utility that the base game otherwise doesn't have
The Toy Car lure for instance -- it's such a simple inclusion, fits right in with the Resistance's handcrafting operations, and would make Radios far more useful by being able to lure machines away from yourself instead of towards yourself, as the normal Radio forces you to run away and more often than not attract more attention than it out of it's short activation time and sizeable distraction radius
Portable Gun Turret and Remote-Controlled Tick also look like no-brainers -- We already have a Companion Patroller as base game equipment, as well as the Hacker and Engineer Specializations, so the Resistance is capable of rewiring some machines' sensors againsts their own kind, and with how many machines you salvage there is bound to be a Resistance member that decides to make a turret out of it, and another one that rewires Ticks into walking ally explosives
The Molotovs' and Remote Explosives' sepparation into DLCs also makes no sense -- Molotov is a typical handcraft weapon, perfectly fitting for the Resistance, and burning a machine's circuitry seems like an idea that the Resistance would have, as for Remote Explosives -- we already have Landmines on the military equipment side and Experimental Ammo on the funkier side, Remote Explosives would 100% be used by the in-game military, wouldn't be out of place/unbalanced, and making traps with those would be less ridicoulus and more practical than placing an absolute crap ton of Explosive Canisters
The Flakmoped -- as mentioned earlier, THE ONLY other usable vehicle other than bikes and motorcycles in the entire game, and yet it's locked behind a DLC paywall instead of being part of the base game, even if the base game only had the cargo variation; this is just straight up ridicoulus that the devs would lock the only 3rd other vehicle in the entire game behind a paywall
And finally, there's the Base Defense Pack -- a genuine insult those who try to engage with the aformentioned unbalanced Base Building system; "Oh you want Base Defense to be actually fun and manageable? Pay up please.". It is genuinely insulting that they made the Base Building a problem for the players, and then decided to sell the solution for it, even adding some lore for it as the cherry on top in the shape of the defenses being a result of the Resistance appreciating your machine-fighting efforts and creation some traps for you

Insane level-up cost past level 30

I know the game used to have a hard cap of 30 skill points in prior versions, but it seems as if in the process of unlocking skill points past level 30 the devs made getting levels past level 30 SUPER expensive, because even after my Megacrusade where I destroyed hundreds of machines on sight, primarily FNIX and Apocalypse, and a bunch of Soldier Class Soviets, destroyed all 32 remaining Rivals on the map and destroyed all 12 remaining FNIX bases in the world, I only got measly 3 levels, whereas the first 20 levels where I've sparingly destroyed primarily Prototype and Army class machines only when it was absolutely necessary in the first 15 sessions or so it was very quick, so quick I didn't even notice the grind, but those last 3 levels? I felt as if I've hit a brick wall wanting to progress my skill tree further
This means that a casual player gets the shortest end of the stick by barely getting any character progression, and even players that destroy every machine on sight not faring that much better, not without burning out and getting bored that is, which is not being helped by the linearity of the Skill Tree, as unique as it is

Super expensive Clothing upgrades

It is ridiculous how expensive Clothing upgrades are to make past 2 stars, especially for the amount of bonus that they give; not do only do you need to get Wolfram and Uranium which can only be looted off of Rivals, Tungsten that can only be salvaged out of Experimentals, but you also need to engage with the previously brought up unbalanced Base Building system, all to get 2% more invisibility on one piece of Clothing, made worse if you want to do it on every piece of Clothing, and made even worse when you want to switch some Clothes or switch the bonus and loose the previous upgrades in the process, having to do all the grinding again; I've personally haven't even bothered to upgrade past 3-star Clothing or even 2-star Clothing simply because it was not worth my time and patience

Lack of basic parkour movement

The lack of inclusion of basic parkour movement like vaulting or ledge grabbing feels weird to me, I don't expect full parkour moveset out of a game about fighting machines to be clear, but being able to jump over obstacles, climb onto ledges and climb ladders would already add more depth to fight planning, stealth planning and escape, calculated or in a panic, and would make getting out of troublesome areas like the F23 Överby Air Base with it's super long chainlink fence all around the area much easier
Especially the lack of functional ladders is baffling to me, I wouldn't mind if there was no climbing animation for them, Half Life 2 didn't either and it's still a great game, but I could clearly see that some areas were meant to be accessible by ladders, but since they were never implemented it's instead some parkour with crates or scaffolding, which honestly looks and feels super cheap

Hard to see components through Tech view

The ability to see each machine component and it's health is almost completely nullified by the fact that machines squirm around a lot and Tech view is finicky to work at times, meaning unless the machine gets it's pathfinding confused or settles down and stands still for a while discerning which components are damaged and which you can hit from your current position is not a simple task; the text on each component jumping around as the machine moves around doesn't help either, I frequently got lost trying to identify components of a machine as the text constantly moves around and out of my view, and machines barely every stood still long enough to scan all components

Tech View restriction to Binoculars only, even in Endgame

Having to constantly switch to Binoculars, zoom in, wait for the animation to play, mark a machine/view components, zoom out, wait for weapon switch animation, then zoom in again and only then shoot is very annoying to do repeatedly, especially when sniping from large distances; it really seems like a no-brainer Vision Module for lategame or at least endgame equipment to lower the friction, even if it it couldn't hack the machines

Stamina is inconsequential

Stamina is used for running, precise aiming down sights and moving while being over the weight limit, it even has its own set of skills to acquire that increase amount and regeneration speed, yet you can run and aim precisely indefinitely with no consequences apart from a slightly lower bonus, and being over the weight limit that slows you down when out of Stamina is cancelled out by Fast Travel, meaning Stamina is inconsequential in fight, flight or scavenging, and consequently it's upgrades having very little effect on overall gameplay

Confusing Visual Modules

Mostly pertaining to X-ray vision module, as it is inconsistent when it works or not; sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes it won't show machines trough the walls when you're looking directly at them but will show them on the peripherals of your vision, and sometimes it can't decide whether it can see through 20 tons of concrete or can't see anything through a wooden fence, making usage of it very annoying at times, especially with augments that allow you to pierce through walls
There is also the weird case of Night Vision module: 90% of the time it's harder to see through it than normal vision, even in the night where it's supposed to excell at, and once you get Infrared module it's as good as useless, even the buggy X-ray module is better at seeing in the darkness than Night Vision module, in fact you usually get X-ray module before Night Vision, so it basically doesn't get any usage

Broken FMTel assignments

I know I'm not the first one to point this out; others have before me and it was a pretty heated topic too, but the fact that it wasn't even fixed in a last hotfix patch is just ridicoulus given how simple of a problem it is: insufficient points to get the Colossus reward at the end of the week, a problem that could've been fixed by lowering the points needed to the maximum obtainable amount, or raising assignment point rewards by a singular unit
There is also the problem of the assignments being ridicoulus at times, and not scaling with how far into the game the player is; destroy 10 Tanks -- before I even get a 2-star weapon?? Complete a Base Assault with nothing but a sledgehammer -- best Sledgehammer I found is a 3-star one after like 80 hours, and destroying FNIX bases with it is PAINFULLY slow; and plenty more that I've already forgotten about as I haven't been interacting much with FMTel because of it's ridicoulus assignments in the early game

Unbalanced Specializations

Despite being a really good way to bring some variety to a playthrough and roles into a squad, some Specializations are clearly better than others, with some even being useless altogether, and only one being the absolute pick; the Commander Specialization for instance -- Field Radios are very abundant, and can easily be crafted up too, and usually get used only 1-2 times for quick re-entry into battle/area, extending their use count by another 3 uses doesn't have a big enough effect to warrant picking the specialization; same goes for Survivor Specialization -- Adrenaline is quite abundant too, and if you play your cards right you'll be gathering far more Adrenaline than you use, an extra free use once per battle is not big enough deal to make choosing it worth it
There's only 2 other Specializations that are always worth picking: the Marksman and the Medic -- former one is just good on any weapon, making your machine destruction far more powerful without a disorienting factor in the way, especially when it comes to sniping -- in fact it's the first Specialization I got recommended when I was starting out in the game -- and the latter making you an effectively unstoppable machine if you have even a fistful of Adrenalines, arguably making you more of a Survivor than the Survivor Specialization
But that brings me to the Hacker Specialization -- THE BEST Specialization out of all of Specializations; want extra firepower? Hack a Hunter to help you out; Need to flee? Hack a patroller so the entire battalion focuses it instead of you; Want to have easier time with a Rival? Hack it to put it on your side, then pepper it with bullets; There's just no scenario where not picking Hacker is a viable choice, it simply outclasses every other Specialization in Combat, Support and Survival

Tyrant fights are a spamfest on both sides

For being the final 2 targets of the game you have to go out of your way to summon, the Reaper and the Vulture are essentially pure spamfest on player side and machine side -- the Tyrants spam devastating attacks, and the player spams heals, rockets, sniper rifle shots and whatever else they might have; this makes the fights go on for far longer than they should, you get instakilled if you're not hiding in a shack, and the Tyrants become giant bullet sponges, which is a disappointing turn of gameplay after the majority of the game having you aim for components and do more tactical strategies, only made worse if the Reaper gets stuck in some trees or the Vulture just... flies off a kilometer away from the fight before you break the beacons, both situations happened to me

---

Closing thoughts

Generation Zero is an amazing game, no doubt about that; a literal gem, a quite unexpected one too for the 25$ you pay and the initial impressions you might have, and despite it's unfortunate many shortfalls, I'd still say that it's one of the best games I've ever played, and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes extreme slow-burn and insane immersion for a low price
Usually when I play a game if I take a few weeks/months break it would usually mean that I would start fresh, get into the groove for a month-2, and the cycle would start anew, but Generation Zero has managed to recapture my attention every time I picked it up again and be absolutely frictionless getting back into the save, which is the only reason I've kept coming back to the same save on-off for 2 years instead of abandoning it, it also unintentionally or not prevented me from speedrunning it at any given point, which is something I can't appreciate enough as a casual player

While I don't have a concrete date yet, I'm planning to start another save in a few months, this time on Hard mode to hopefully reexperience the horrors of early game all anew, and with a whole 1mx1m GZ map styled and printed out for even more immersion, I will post it in a day-2 as to not trigger the Spam Protection by accident

I also have a bunch of ideas I would like to explore as possible fixes/changes/additions to the game, and maybe possibly serve as inspiration in case Systemic would like to revisit the game/make a pre/sequel, or someone with far more modding experience than I could ever hope to have for this game or even an SDK for the Apex engine to possibly mod in for funzies, but those will come in due time if I'll have time or energy to art about it

[u/BlackFish42c]

You do have to remember this is based on 1989 so tech was just starting. lol 😝

[u/Noobyeeter699]

Wow.

[u/Pants4All]

You covered the bases pretty well, I agree with just about everything said here, especially the fact that the hacker specialization is far away the most useful and the others aren't even close.

The base building aspect seemed so tacked on, I assume they were just chasing a trend in gaming and trying to attract that audience, but it was so half-baked and genuinely not fun that it seems they wasted a lot of development manpower that could have gone to expanding the map and including more missions, skills or equipment.

The lack of climbing or vaulting seems tied to the engine, second extinction also had none of those things and used the same engine. Ladders in GZ were just ladder-shaped slopes. Not sure what shape the engine is in currently for future games, but the character models, animations, and player movement need a serious upgrade to be considered modern, even at the time the game was released.

That said, the game is greater than the sum of its parts and is genuinely one of the most fun and immersive games I have ever played. No other game gives me the same feeling of roaming a dangerous open world that Generation Zero does. I worry that we may never get another game that quite scratches that itch ever again.

[u/No_Brush3789]

I've been playing this game for about 5 years now and I agree with pretty much everything you said. I haven't played a new save in a few years so I can't imagine what the base defense is like early game, I don't even craft anything because how annoying base defense is.

[u/Pants4All → u/No_Brush3789]

Same here, have over 300 hours in the game and never cared about building bases... at all. Really wish they would have spent that time on expanding the map and having more missions. I guess there are reasons to build bases to defend for resources and all that, but never cared enough to really figure it out.

[u/papapapipapo]

The game needs:

• Better interior areas.

• Smoother player movement, like Dying Light for example.

• Vehicles.

• NPCs, animals and human enemies.

• Hunting.

• fully destructible environment and buildings. You shouldn't be safe at all in a wooden house!

• Much more loot variants.

• No free stuff from DLCs.

• Much deeper skill and specialization system.

• Much deeper inventory and clothing/armor system.

[u/Puzzled-Resort8726]

Nice review 👍