Recent reviews by Jarl

The negative I would say is poor optimization and the issue with camping the landing zones, optimization issues and content being limited is obviously something that comes with Early Access, so that gets a pass.
The positives is the persistent map, the insertion by heli is a cool feature, combat feels good, AI while in need of improvement is aggressive and WILL push you if you are healing or trying to save a teammate.
I think this will be an interesting contender in the extraction shooter market and I am happy to see a competitor to Tarkov, with it's own unique approach to things.
Competition is good to encourage the companies to steadily improve their game and to listen to the feedback of their playerbase.
While neither Tarkov nor Gray zone are perfect games and they both have their issues and unique positive aspects, I would say Gray Zone is a diamond in the rough and I am looking forwards to seeing where the devs take it.

Yes, it is poorly optimized, and that is what is Early Access, people need to understand this, this is how EA should be done, it is a product that is not done that is currently being developed and improved, and you can be a part of that by playing it and providing feedback.

The core gameplay and gameplay loop is decent enough, if you've played Xcom you will be familiar with the concept, some aspects need finetuning like infection and scaling etc, my main gripe is the childlike and girlbossy inquisitor which is rather cringey, WH40k has plenty of impressive clever and strong women done in a variety of tasteful ways, the women here? Feels like it is written by some wannabe-a-man manhating feminist with a few contradictions in their heads about what they want to achieve, a strong woman? A mannish woman? Yet also a childlike in looks woman? The mechanicus character was far more interesting and nuanced and fit much better with the lore, if anything the mechanicus character could be even more autistic. But a petulant bratty inquisitor that looks like a child with a childish art style? Being a fan of wh40k for decades that just ruins it for me, a bratty noble? Sure, inquisitor? Ehh.
Oh and the random blue lights covering the ship? No.. just no.
40k is going to lose itself by going for the fabled ''wide audience'' it will please no one and eventually kill itself.
My main gripes come with lore, immersion and art style choices all being much to childish, it is jarring and ruins immersion into the setting of trying to purge a chaotic infection.

Edit: On steam and the official forums of the game there is now extreme censorship and people are being banned left and right and post are being removed. It appears no critique of the game is allowed whatsoever, this kind of behavior shows you who not to give your money too.
And a further development is that people have dug through the game files and discovered that the game was supposed to take a very different direction, but at the end of the development cycle they were given a new direction and forced to take the lead from someone I am not allowed to mention by name as then the review will be censored for targetted harrassment.
Long story short is that there is a woman with brightly colored hair(you know the type) that came in an functioned as the overlord and forced changes on the games story.
As time passes I am sure more information will come out, I would give names or link reviews or videos talking about these things more in depth, but that would lead to the review getting banned.
DO NOT BUY.



Sadly a clear downgrade from the prior titles in the franchise, too many plot devices, things do not make sense, things are perfectly convenient, you do not have the feeling of every ship every loss being a irreplaceable harm to your group, etc etc etc ad infinitum. And of course there is the DEI BS, the diversity is overboard in this one, again to the point where if you have a functioning brain it does not make sense, if such an amount of people were POC, then either the remainder are racist segregations or they would also fit the DEI bill by being equally diverse, that is simply how genetics works.
Cataclysm was great, 1&2 were great, Deserts of Kharak was a departure from the prior games, but still quite fun and still stuck with the story and feeling. So far, this feels like ♥♥♥♥.
Most missions are straight up lacklustre copies of actually interesting and fun missions in the prior titles, there is no feeling of loss, no feeling of success, no pressure, no regret other than buying the game itself.
Everything is just a pale disappointing copy of what came before.
I strongly advice against buying this, if you must, then sail the seven seas, or get it at a site named allkeyshop for a massive discount, but for the love of Hiigara, do not buy this at full price.

Edit:Just realized.. Sweet baby inc had their hands in this pie.. I guess that has quite a bit to do with why it is garbage. A racist bunch of ♥♥♥♥♥.

Edit: completed the campaign and played a bit in the other modes, campaign is absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, mechanically speaking the game is OK, pathfinding is kind of dumb, as is the logic of different kinds of ships, there needs to be a better prioritization of which enemies which ships attack, making a battlegroup where you have fighters screening your larger ships or bombers, you have the armored heavier ships tanking the main part of incoming fire, frigates etc focusing on either larger or smaller targets depending on the specialization and so on. You can manually do this by assigning groups and micro commands, it definitely should be a bit streamlined, it is a fine line between having good control of your fleet vs microing too much.
Another point is your ships do not feel like they counter each other properly, when you get to a certain point you just blob and zerg rush.
It seems most of the issues comes from one purple haired feminist that made the game radically depart from what was intended, you can search online and you will see who I mean, she has a past working for radical political news sites, being a feminist, hating men etc etc.
Not worth it.

Of the 3d games in the series this is the only good one, an excellent game absolutely worth playing, Fallout 3 makes no sense lorewise as the main objective has no reason whatsoever, you can clean radiation and contamination out of water with sand gravel and charcoal and some boiling of water, Fallout 4 tries to be and FPS and an RPG and it does neither, it's lore is even worse and the gameplay is garbage as well as the story.
Meanwhile this beaut right here is an excellent game, gameplay is good, story is great, options and choices are on point. An absolute Fallout classic.

Well this is buggy, mouse stuttering issues, crashes audio drivers etc, need to reboot, then need to reconnect both mouse and headset at is crashes them. Can't even review the gameplay due to the issues with the game functioning at all. When they fix the issues I will review the actual gameplay instead of reviewing crappy bugs.
Game is fun enough, very much so relies on good teammates that cooperate, but with random mouse stuttering and the mouse refusing to accept input for seconds at a time makes the game unplayable.
As is it is crap, apparently the mouse stutter is a ''known issue'' but it also apparently is not being fixed.

Finally after countless guides and messing with multiple apps and settings I got the mouse stutter to ♥♥♥♥ off, gameplay is fun, fairly fast paced and the destruction makes for fun tactical gameplay, only issue is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the amount of cheaters, and they aren't even being slightly discreet about it. With the issues of the mouse stuttering and the hassle of getting it fixed and the official discord being unwilling to help simply stating ''it is a known issue'' and the amount of cheaters, I can safely say I will never pick up this game again, damn shame as it is fun gameplay, but with the issues and cheaters it just isn't worth it.

The most tonedeaf name for a DLC ever chosen by Paradox(considering they ignore their fanbase and censor criticism in their discord and on their forums), a new record low even for Paradox, if nothing else at least that is impressive..

This is just awful, graphics looks like it is intended to be in a mobile game, gameplay feels off and unrewarding, the story is garbage, and the voice acting is absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, it feels like random babling and you just happen to be there to listen to some unnatural monologue that is a poor excuse for dialogue. Characters are uninteresting, etc etc, it is so bad I cannot bring myself to finish the base missions to the end, and it has plenty of nice microtransactions as well.
There is a reason this game has overwhelmingly bad reviews, and I can't say I disagree with any of the complaints.
I hope the devs take it to heart and give us a Hawken worthy of being a successor to its name, but I do have my doubts there is any undoing this turd sandwhich.

Do NOT buy this game before they fix the buggy mess they have released

Like Vermintide before it it has bad netcode, disconnect issues, bugs, crashes galore. It is a nice game but a buggy mess that is not ready for release.
As for the positives the aesthetic they captured pretty well, it looks nice as well, combat is satisfying but definitely needs some twerks(being ogryn trying to melee fight in stairs for example).
It is definitely a game best played with friends as the randoms you get as teammates manage to ♥♥♥♥ up even the easiest difficulty which turns into a massive time waste for you, and easiest difficulty is way to easy to be enjoyable.
Overall when they un♥♥♥♥ the buggy mess I think it is a solid 7/10 with room for improvement.

But I repeat DO NOT BUY IT BEFORE IT IS FINISHED.

I tried this during the beta you could sign up for, and was charmed by the game instantly despite its many flaws, and I figured I'd share my two cents on the game.

Now for those of you that are not familiar with the game through watching streamers or gameplay this is an extract shooter with PVE and PVP, same type of game as Hunt Showdown, Escape from Tarkov, The Cycle Frontier etc.

Having played a lot of EFT and Hunt this game is a bit more on the goofy side with its aesthetics and its diesel punk ww1 never ended and continued into space alt history, and it does so in a great way, the setting is cool, the equipment in the game is fitting and fun, the atmosphere of the game is pretty good overall.

As for guns modding of guns, ammunition types, ''realism'' etc you could compare this to a more basic arcadey and chill version of Tarkov as you do not need gun knowledge or a spreadsheet to figure out which munitions to use etc, and in gameplay with combat etc best way to describe it is a more arcadey and chill tarkov.

The maps are fairly unique to each other and give a different feel that fits with what it is trying to go for, the ship interiors for boarding actions are nicely done as well. I will say that the downside of shipboarding etc is that there are set boarding points which if you know you are being boarded allows you to kill the boarder without them having a chance to retaliate which I think should be balanced a bit more between attacker and defender.

There is also ship combat and a total of 5 different ships that you as a player can use currently with different stats, you have your trusty rustbucket which you have in unlimited amounts for free which does the job just fine and even high tier players are using so they can discard it and jump in an escape pod and get out.
You have the scout frigate which is identical to the rustbucket in all ways except the stats, it is faster, it takes more damage and manouvers better, probably the ship you will use the most.
There is the interceptor which is a bit more frail and a long sleek frigate focus on speed and agility, if you master the very basic space combat and put some rocket artillery on that thing you can wipe out 2 other players ships before even getting into the raid part.
Then you have a heavy frigate which is a MUCH larger interior and exterior and significantly more durable ship for you to slug it out with the enemy and destroy them, best way to deal with these ships is simply to board it kill the player and add it to your hangar or scrap it for money.
And then you have your capital ship, this ship is impractical enormous, stupid in every way and has 2 weapons hardpoints instead of the single one of the other ships, if someone boards you you can play hide and seek with them due to the size of the ship. Stupid in every way and a status symbol/meme ship in every way.

It is currently early access as it states and comes with the usual bugs and issues you would expect, random crashes, bugged out equipment or inventory etc, EFT has been out for years and still has inventory and equipment bugs at times so this is not a major thing provided you don't expect a finished product when it is in early access.

Overall the current content is a bit limited and there are some bugs, when consider the asking price and the current state of the product and the fun you can have I would say the game is absolutely worth it if you are looking for a budget/arcade tarkov. A quite enjoyable game overall. 8/10 with clear potential to improve as development continues, and if the devs previous actions or interactions with the community is anything to go by, then that is pretty much a guarantee.

The game is so painfully bad I could not even finish the campaign, absolute crap.