Recent reviews by Calobrin

My friend decided to gift me this game without asking me (again).

I went full monke mode and beat the ever living ♥♥♥♥ out of him as revenge. It was fairly enjoyable.

The next round we played against AI Bigfoot in Redwood, still fairly enjoyable and we kinda destroyed him.

The next round after that was on the winter park map. We played for over an hour and a half, the first 45-60 minutes of this we spent running around finding almost nothing at all but got decently armed.
Then we finally found one body, and then the other, and then put the clues together to quickly find the third. But during this time we did not see the Bigfoot at ALL. We waited... We waited for day, still no sign. We waited for night, still no sign. As we approached the 2 hour mark we just decided to detonate ourselves and jump off cliffs because we were bored out of our ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ minds. (mind you we set Bigfoot's difficulty and damage to 3)

Then we finally went to Yellowstone and swapped a friend out for the other as they got tired from the previous run and went to bed. We spent about a half an hour running around finding VERY little supplies, even with loot set to 3, and being bum-rushed by the now lessened in difficulty Bigfoot every 5 minutes. Eventually he came at us again with our minimal remaining supplies we managed to find and I got downed, used first aid kit, and died instantly before even getting up.

Overall I had the high-peak of bludgeoning my friend to death, and rode the high off of that all the way into the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ underworld. I had less and less fun the more I played and I really just wish that they didn't gift me this game like I TOLD THEM NOT TO.

In my opinion? Maps are kinda freaking huge, and it takes WAY too long to traverse between points of interest.
If you want to get this game just for the sake of playing with friends and going monke mode? Sure I am sure it is fun, but for playing the game for the purpose of clearing the objective with friends against an AI Bigfoot, from my perspective it isn't really worth playing. I could just be grouchy for how long I played but feel like I didn't really get anything done for the time I put into it.
I've seen reviews saying how old this game is and how it is still in early access, but I feel like it still has a long way to go.

I got this game for my girlfriend and I to try out, seemed neat and like something to do. I gifted it to myself through their account so I technically have this via a gift.

Game seemed interesting, ran the tutorial, then was like okay let's do this and gave it a go.
I go to host a server. No options on who I let join, no lobby, no clue if or when my g/f even joined my server because we never got to see each other.
I make my character, choose a basic job and one talent because that's all I can give myself without having incredibly punishing negative perks to "afford" better ones. I spawn in and then instantly there is a zombie outside the window and it sees me. *panic sound effect here*
I also got the server settings window popup at the instant I spawn telling me to hit esc and invite friends so I did that..
I try to scramble to find any items in the house I spawned in and no dice, nothing. Zombie gets in and gets on me and I hadn't even barely gotten an invite out yet.

I try to escape and end up running around but it seems that every single other zombie in the neighborhood is on my ass and knows my exact location like they got freaking radar. Not really fun so far.
The tutorial felt scripted, but that end bit where the 300 zombies that spawn after pressing Q and being able to know exactly where you were, I thought that was just a scripted ha ha go die and have fun with the real game, no that's just how the zombies are.
Did I mention I tried immediately crouching when getting in game in hopes to avoiding conflict with the neighborhood locals? Again, no dice...

I end up saying screw it and go down swinging to respawn and MAYBE find my girlfriend or whatever. I spawn in a new house, this house actually HAS things in it, go figure!
I loot the house, all the while crouched and sneaking silently, get a frying pan, a knife, get some cloth scrapped up for bandaging or whatever I feel decent about this. Head to the front door and go to step outside. Zombie off to the south east sees me and guns for me. I am ready, I also notice oh hey there is an axe in his head. I can kill him and take that, that would be sweet.
I dispatch the local idiot and go to loot whatever is on him. Dealing with the loot inventory system seems very cumbersome and not very intuitive... Before I get to loot said local idiot I already have 2 more zombies coming after me. I decide to use corners and the doorway to fight them off one by one. I am doing sort of okay but damn these are taking a lot of hits.
I think I get bit once finally, I keep backing up and taking corners to hit and run, I go upstairs and kill one up there. I go back downstairs and hit the other zombie and then I just suddenly keel over. No clue what was wrong with me but I guess that one or maybe two? (Hard to tell when I am being actually hit or not. Feels clunky) I just drop dead. Awesome.

Respawn again.. Same song and dance.. new character.. stats.. talents.. whatever...
I spawn in and pretty much same situation.
Zombies everywhere, no supplies, nowhere to escape. I found a house with a water bottle which is great because this life had me being thirsty. I filled it at a sink.. and.. how do I use it? Equip primary? No.. I can't.. how do I .. what?
I have no idea how the hell to drink the water bottle, and before I knew it somehow I wasn't thirsty anymore???

All in all, I just felt like I was bashing my head against the wall. I figured and anticipated the game to be either difficult, challenging, or even very hard, but this was absolutely unforgiving. I don't want to have to grind against the game so it becomes "playable" when I have literally everything I may need to survive.
Game has an interesting concept, but I feel just either is done poorly, or perhaps not my cup of tea.

I have it set up to refund the gift because this just isn't worth it to me.

TL;DR
Game is extremely punishing to new players and drops you in next to zombies that immediately kill you while you are still trying to learn the basics of the game and have nothing to defend yourself.
Zombies are a hivemind and all nearby zombies have your ass on GPS.
Not fun. Not worth the time sink to "learn to play"

It is worth playing through for sure, though I am not 100% sure I understood everything with just one run through.

Perks of my one campaign:
Being the dead guy of the group and people forgetting that and healing me.
Not nearly enough poison potions..

But no, game is fun and enjoyable, there are a few buggy weirdness with some hits not registering when they should, hits registering when they shouldn't, and a bit of lag but who knows

First time playing a tactical turn based game like this and it was enjoyable, but still I feel the story is a bit convoluted and hard to follow. Too MANY twists and turns leave it feeling a bit lost and confused.