Recent reviews by copygirl

Played this game a long while back when it was free to try during a weekend. Only got so far. Noticed a couple of issues. Many of these issues still seem to be present in the game today, with some frustrations added on top.

Generation Zero is in theory a neat game. You can certainly see that love was put into it. It looks stunning. The environments are varied enough to not get too repetitive. The gameplay loop is fine, if it's what you like: Explore - loot - shoot - loot some more. I only got so far in the game, and there's some mechanics I've yet to try out, but I feel like half a dozen hours should be enough to get a gist of what the game is about.

I want to voice some of my frustrations:

• The UI and controls have their flaws, feels very much like a console game ported to PC. Sometimes when transferring items I wish I could easily see information about them.
  
• For some reason they have "hold E to interact" on by default - something you can change in the settings - when a simple click is far less annoying, saving a lot of time as well.
  
• The "take all" button does nothing when the robot you're looting has no loot. You have to instead press escape to get out of that screen.
  
• I've lost quite some time looting destroyed robots after a good fight because I couldn't find the buggers' corpses. A loot indicator would honestly be nice to alleviate that.
  
• I may have not gotten far enough in the game, but the skill system, while offering a lot of other gamified goodies, doesn't seem to offer what feels to me should be an essential feature: A way to highlight weakpoints on robots.
  
• By far the worst is the assignment system that requires an "Avalanche Apex Connect" account or whatever. My friends and I chose to go with a limited account, check out the game, maybe decide differently later. To our surprise, assignments were still available to us (proving that limited accounts totally could have this functionality), and I even completed one and got some rewards. Well, turns out we were just tricked. As I was working on my second assignment, the feature was blocked out again. This sort of bait-and-switch, combined with the arbitrary requirement of a "proper" account (that will want your email), made me lose quite some respect for the game and its developers.

All in all, the game certainly (still) has some potential. But it feels like instead of working on the remaining issues in the game, the focus here is more on what many game companies do nowadays: Player retention. Get people addicted, make them play for "number go up" and mission rewards, rather than to make sure the gameplay loop is as fun as it can be, and resolve flaws present in the game.

You should obviously draw your own conclusions, but with a heavy heart I would not be able to recommend getting the game at its full price, or maybe not at all. We need to be able to show developers that certain practices are bad, and expect better from them.

The developers have, without prior notice or even an announcement, dropped Linux support for this game. And that after claiming on their website[web.archive.org] at the time:

I have a Mac/Linux, can I play?
Mac and Linux versions are available and are first-class citizens!

(At the time of writing this review, the company page[www.nobrakesgames.com] even wrongly states that there still is Linux support.)

So how do us Linux gamers have to find out? Get a cryptic "incompatible versions" error when trying to play with friends, and having to go to the game's Steam forum to find a half-hearted response from the developer. I mean... what is "we appreciate the frustration" even supposed to mean?

Why this is a big issue? Because some of us want to support developers that put in the effort to make and update games that run natively on Linux. Heck, I bought the game for multiple people! To deceive Linux gamers by claiming they're "first-class citizens" and then go back on that very clear promise, in favor of other things such as console support (yuck) is a pretty big punch to the face. I've tried contacting both the publisher and developer, outlining this issue and asking for a refund, but I haven't even received a response in a month.

A great space-themed combat/stealth/puzzle* game with rogue-lite elements, such as permanent death**, randomly generated ships with random missions and loot and limited*** set of tools that you can acquire and learn to use in unique ways. Definitely worth the fair price if you're into this sort of thing. (Or.. just try it out? After all, you can refund a game if you've played it less than 2 hours.)

• Various difficulty levels and additional mission requirements to match and test your skill.
  
• There's multiple layers of goals so you always have something to aim for: Dealing with an encounter, finishing a single mission, finishing a character's personal mission and liberating the entire galaxy.
  
• Only has a very basic story to justify the gameplay. You can instead make your own by stepping into various characters and choosing how to play with them. Perhaps based on their personal mission, or starting equipment, or what hardships they encounter during your playtime.
  
• (*) You can pause the game at any time and take as much time as you need to plan.
  
• (**) Depending on how you screw up, you may get a couple of chances before the eventual end of your character. The "captured" lose condition allows you to rescue your old character with a new one.
  
• The game encourages you to start over even if you manage to survive, by slowing the galaxy liberation progression with a well-known character and allowing you to pick a unique name for a weapon to find later on if you retire them.
  
• Steam integration: Find named items by your friends' retired characters or rescue their captured ones - if they missed their chance.

• A few oddities and glitches that aren't really annoying, let alone game-breaking.
  
• Some things are not communicated well enough. It's apparently easier to get the rarest items by buying loot boxes using money you earned from missions instead of looting ships..? I've accidentally left my character to asphyxiate in space because it wasn't clear that they weren't in the pod. I killed an NPC I was supposed to capture. ...you can throw things!?
  
• (***) While the weapons and tools are quite "balanced", I wish there was more to play with.