One of the most promising Early Access games I've stumbled upon lately. Fingers crossed the devs don’t ghost it halfway through, like so many others.

From the get-go, it’s a delightful exercise in suffering. Not sure how many zombies a decent character can handle at once, but judging by the first experience—probably not more than three or four. Hordes? Yeah, no. Not in this game. Resources are scarce, which is perfect!

The tutorial? Let's just say it's more of a polite suggestion than actual guidance. If I hadn’t played This War of Mine, I might’ve rage-quit 15 minutes in.

And the task queuing... seriously, one bench per character? So you’re telling me my guy can’t finish a knife, whip up some dinner, and crash for the night like a functional human being? Time management feels like punishment. And I’d love to know how close I am to collapsing (how many hours I have left), instead of just guessing.

Still, let’s be real—only a hypocrite would rate this negatively. It’s Early Access, and for what it is, it's already damn impressive.

Keep it up, devs. Just... don’t disappear, please.

MAN this game is SO close to being good that it is actually upsetting!

Ok first let's get the bad out of the way:
The base mechanics are literally just - not worthy of the "action" part of the game! It couldn't be any more basic if they tried! There are a cooking station, a first aid station, a weapons crafting station and a "salvage" station... They have a few tiers upgrading the things they can do....
The end! - No really - it is. You have beds and a place where the suvivors can hang out - but thats even more basic. There is NO social interaction at all - there is no specialities other than "this person make lockpicks cheaper" and "that person is better at salvaging items"...
To be 100% blunt - this is almost directly copied from "This War of Mine" - without ANY improvements!!

Now even WORSE than that is the constant base-hopping to get around the map. Your base never feels like "home" because you can only explore a short range outside your base - but don't worry - there are plenty of places which can be used - but you will never be able to stay put if you want to progress. Oh yeah here there are another big point! You "move" all your stations with you when you change base (How?!) however you can't build a few things - namely a rainwater collector (Again how? It's LITERALLY one of the easiest things in the world to set up if you have some plastic, a few sticks and a bucket - I mean you could just put out the bucket when it rains on it's own and that would collect some water when it rains - but no - this is too complicated a concept for your suvivors - who can figure out how to build weapons and barricades??) - SO - you have to find a base which already has a rainwater collector to collect rain water... So when you got one you take it with you right.... right.....??? NOPE - who needs water right! Rather pick up the metal workbenches and so on and move those - who wants to carry a few tarps and plastic buckets?!?! Not me!! LOL 0 logic!

There are tons more smaller - yet still baffling things I have gripes with in the base building part - yet this is already TL:DR - so I better move one to the next part.

The story/storytelling: You shouldn't play this game for that! It starts out REALLY well with a bunch of lore and a fair bit of character development - but then it just stops! Like 0 after the first lore dumb. When you meet a new survivor you have a small converstaion with them, you get a small loredump about them in their bio thing... and then that's it! A few of them have negative effects from being depressed or being hurt - however all you need to do is to put them in the correct place or heal them up - and that's that... Again this smells a bit like "This War of Mine" - yet in that game you get running "updates" to their story - rarely but they are there. In this - literally nothing!
Now in any other game I would say spoilers now - but there is LITERALLY nothing to spoil which is the problem. When you finish/"win" the game - you get a small text blurb with some VERY basic "this happened next" information on a single still picture... then it fades to black and you see the studio logo - and now you are back at the main menu screen with 0 fanfare! In my 35 years as a gamer it is in top 5 worst endings in a PC game! I know it's early access - however it would NOT be hard to seem like you actually GAF about the people playing your game - and write a few pages of text for each survivor - and then have someone with a good "Dad goodnight story reading voice" tell the story as a reward for completing the game! And what is up with the 1 still image? AT LEAST have a few pictures of the events and a few images of each survivor getting to safety. It is a REALLY basic request! Really the ending as it is now feels like a middle finger devs!

And now - the last one of the large complaints here. The game can sometimes be a bit too easy - and that's mostly because of how basic the base system is. There is rarely any reason to "take risks" because - well - there are very few special items and you can get the basic items in any location so - if things goes south just run away and you will be all good. SO instead of making gameplay mechanics which makes the game harder - they sometimes put in "traps" - which is... WHAT? Ok let me explain why this is an issue: First off - this is a perma-death game, which frankly most of the time is "whatever" because - well if your character dies then it's your own fault. BUT - and it's a BIT BUT - Sometimes the undead which are too stupid to realize that the other undead they ran around with 30 seconds ago is now dead on the floor and maybe you should react to that - has construted a trap? Or someone else did because some of them are so elaborate that it couldn't have happened by accident! Now you have dormant zombies waking up and charging you from both sides trapping you... So let me re-state that: The map has a trap, the trap doesn't just damage you, it wakes up dormant zombies on both sides of in your 2.5D game - blocking you in and killing your suvivor... Great! Amazing game mechanics right there! Not cheap AT ALL! LOL

Lastly - is there good parts to the game? YES! That's what's INFURIATING about this!
The location variaty is GREAT! Like truly amazing. Going from an art gallery to a hospital to a biker gangs clubhouse to an arcade to a "meat packing plant" aka slaughterhouse... etc etc etc... It could be AMAZING if some love and care was put into having small stories in each location or maybe even "non playable" survivors you save for a reward or just to be a good person in the middle of this nightmare of a situation!
There is a pretty good level of weapon variaty - where you can use different weapons in the same run with great success. Grabbing a knife to quietly take down zombies in sneak attacks - and then going ham on a few that spotted you with a giant and loud axe... Pretty good. The durability on some weapons seems a bit... well lame... I found a cavalry sabre which had a maxed out durability bar. I think I killed 6 or 7 zombies with it and then it broke... That is some pretty poor steel right there! LOL
The animations are great - with a few exceptions where something just looks wrong - but as a whole that is a huge positive.
The sound design... Is great! You can for the most parts tell where sound is coming from - and the sounds are pretty damn good for this kind of game.
For the most parts - the levels are very well designed if we ignore the cheap gimmicky traps. If the devs reads this review - here is an idea for you: How about upgrading stuff like the hiding mechanic a bit, so you can hide in something like a locker in a school, but then when you do have the view limited to as if you where looking through the vents? That could be pretty fun. Also - adding weight instead of just "storage slots" could be great. Like how does a few screws take up as much space as a homemade axe? It's a bit... well basic. The size and weight of stuff should matter in a scenaio like this tbh!

What I can't get over and why I don't just move on - and why I'm even spending time on writing this - is because I can't understand how this game can be so creative and well done, while simutaniously seeming so lacking of creativity and just having the most lazy executions! It's actually an accomplishment in it self! I rarely am this split on a game! This could SO easily be much better than TWoM - but it just falls flat on it's face! I HOPE this is because they haven't gotten around to parts of the game yet and what we see now is just placeholders for something actually good.

So - sadly - I can NOT recommend this game at its current stage! I feels like it doesn't respect your time and effort, tries to kill your characters with gimmicks - and then have 0 payout at the end if you succeed. If you are ok with the parts I mentioned - and a bunch more smaller issues - then great give it a go. Otherwise get something else for the time being anyway!

Amazing game, developers making the right choices taking community feedback with decisions around weapons too.

Hoping for achievements in the future so completing all the different endings and events feels more fulfilling.