I finally beat this game on Survival 2. Overall I think if you like zombie shooters you will love it as I did but it is a game that is not without it's faults.
On the first playthrough you will find yourself enjoying the progression, open world, and story. But on a NG+ playthrough you will likely find yourself hating all 3 of those things.
The story is good and reminds me a lot of the first 3 seasons of the Walking Dead insofar as there are a lot of dumb scenes that makes no sense alongside some actually decent character arcs and writing. However, there is a lot of forced flashback scenes that could have easily been completed through a simple cutscene rather than making you spend 5-10 minutes slowly walking or riding thorugh an unengaging boring narrative dump. The game fails to integrate these in an interesting way unlike Star Wars Fallen Order where the flashbacks act as tutorials and storytelling moments. On a second playthrough almost every single aspect of the story just sucks. Much in the same way that you likely would never want to rewatch the first 3 seasons of the Walking Dead.
The Open World on a first playthrough is great. It is smartly designed and layed out and has all kinds of things to complete from repetetive puzzles to hordes you can hunt and kill. However at a certain point it just becomes a tedium to navigate. Between the constant marauder traps and the groups of zombies at night by the time you finish the game you will be begging for it to all end. On the second playthrough it has 0 pull. You just want to completely ignore it and blast through the interesting parts (killing hordes).
The progression is great but at a certain point on your first playthrough you will notice all difficulty has been removed from the game. Once you have a consistent gun in each slot for killing humans, hordes, and strong enemies the game just loses all difficulty. Especially if you have been stacking stamina upgrades like I did on my first playthrough. On a second playthrough the progression is nonexistant which would be fine if the game had any form of difficulty to throw at you. You really start to notice how much the gameplay was designed around controllers because on PC even killing the largest horde in the game becomes a cakewalk. M+KB makes killing humans and zombies so easy because everything in the game except for a select few mutations is killed in one headshot. So once you unlock the Rock Chuck you basically just get to mow everything down without missing a shot due to it's high accuracy and good mag capacity. My go to loadout is Rock Chuck, Eliminator, and MG-55. The sidearm handles strong enemies in 5-10 hits. The MG mows down hordes without effort. While the Rock Chuck is a jack of all trades silenced beast.
Final notes: It is worth a play if you like zombie games. I loved most of this game because I just love mowing down zombies. There is a level of catharsis that you get just taking out zombies that most other genres can't give you. However, much like State of Decay 2 this game really falls flat on too many fronts for it to be the ideal zombie experience.
On the first playthrough you will find yourself enjoying the progression, open world, and story. But on a NG+ playthrough you will likely find yourself hating all 3 of those things.
The story is good and reminds me a lot of the first 3 seasons of the Walking Dead insofar as there are a lot of dumb scenes that makes no sense alongside some actually decent character arcs and writing. However, there is a lot of forced flashback scenes that could have easily been completed through a simple cutscene rather than making you spend 5-10 minutes slowly walking or riding thorugh an unengaging boring narrative dump. The game fails to integrate these in an interesting way unlike Star Wars Fallen Order where the flashbacks act as tutorials and storytelling moments. On a second playthrough almost every single aspect of the story just sucks. Much in the same way that you likely would never want to rewatch the first 3 seasons of the Walking Dead.
The Open World on a first playthrough is great. It is smartly designed and layed out and has all kinds of things to complete from repetetive puzzles to hordes you can hunt and kill. However at a certain point it just becomes a tedium to navigate. Between the constant marauder traps and the groups of zombies at night by the time you finish the game you will be begging for it to all end. On the second playthrough it has 0 pull. You just want to completely ignore it and blast through the interesting parts (killing hordes).
The progression is great but at a certain point on your first playthrough you will notice all difficulty has been removed from the game. Once you have a consistent gun in each slot for killing humans, hordes, and strong enemies the game just loses all difficulty. Especially if you have been stacking stamina upgrades like I did on my first playthrough. On a second playthrough the progression is nonexistant which would be fine if the game had any form of difficulty to throw at you. You really start to notice how much the gameplay was designed around controllers because on PC even killing the largest horde in the game becomes a cakewalk. M+KB makes killing humans and zombies so easy because everything in the game except for a select few mutations is killed in one headshot. So once you unlock the Rock Chuck you basically just get to mow everything down without missing a shot due to it's high accuracy and good mag capacity. My go to loadout is Rock Chuck, Eliminator, and MG-55. The sidearm handles strong enemies in 5-10 hits. The MG mows down hordes without effort. While the Rock Chuck is a jack of all trades silenced beast.
Final notes: It is worth a play if you like zombie games. I loved most of this game because I just love mowing down zombies. There is a level of catharsis that you get just taking out zombies that most other genres can't give you. However, much like State of Decay 2 this game really falls flat on too many fronts for it to be the ideal zombie experience.