Generation Zero is like Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, but if Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds removed nearly all the other players, replaced them with giant robots and left the pure and unfettered jank of it all buggily intact.
That’s sort of the conceit of the story, too. You and your friends were returning from a day trip to a nearby island when you crashed your boat. Now, you’ve washed ashore and everyone you know and love has disappeared, replaced with metallic beasties that prowl the striking gray-green wilderness. Oh, and it’s the ‘80s.
There’s a constant sense of tension as you crouch around this mostly empty world, knowing that, at any second, one of those mechanized doggos could chew through half your health with a single springy leap at your torso. But, just as often the tension comes from the game’s technical difficulties. Sometimes you’ll look beneath your feet and the ground will disappear revealing the blue ripple-textured plane of the ocean below. Often, boulders dance a spasmodic jig on the ground in front of you, glitching in and out like a time-lapse gif of a sick kid contracting and recovering from chicken pox. The most nerve-wracking moment I’ve had in Generation Zero so far resulted, not from any Simon Stålenhag-inspired (or not Simon Stalenhag-inspired, depending on who you believe) opponent staring down the barrel of my dilapidated shotgun. Rather, it was waiting to see if the cassette reels that spin in the bottom left corner of the loading screen would keep rolling or come to a halt as I hit yet another infinite load bug.
As I sneak through this world that feels on the brink of falling apart, I can’t help but feel that, like PUBG, Generation Zero could have benefited from some time as an early access title. If you, like me, heard that the Swedish developer was somehow releasing this game between December’s Just Cause 4 and May’s Rage 2 and thought, “Wow, that’s a lot! Wonder how they’re managing it all,” the answer is: Generation Zero feels exactly like the kind of game a AAA studio could reasonably squeeze out in between two other, more expensive games.
That is to say, Generation Zero isn’t bad, but you can almost feel the team members being siphoned off this project in favor of others with bigger potential for return on investment. The houses, barns, and sheds that you’ll search for loot (and take shelter in from the robot horde) all share common structures with only minor aesthetic differences—a different neon poster here, a different saying embroidered in the framed, wall-mounted doily there. Roughly 10 hours in, I haven’t encountered any NPCs; there are no quest givers in what is, ostensibly, an open world game. Instead, you’ll listen to distress calls broadcasting over radios or recorded on answering machines; you’ll find maps or notes that point you in the right direction.
That right direction can still be difficult to find, as the waypoint system needs some serious work. New objectives don’t show up on the map, even if you’re tracking them. Instead, once you get close enough, a floating marker will show up in the air to guide you to your destination. If you do manage to find your destination, there’s a solid chance that a giant robot will knock your health down to zero with a pair of missiles, or that a gang of the aforementioned mecha-hounds will team up to end you. Once your health hits zero, you will sometimes have the option to revive (I don’t know why or how the game decides whether this option is available), but will often get a game over sending you back to the nearest safe house, which is often not very near at all. If you’re attempting to make your way through a particularly crowded area, put a podcast on and expect to make slow, abortive progress. This world is hard to navigate, and early on at least, the effort needed is questionably worth it.
Some of these issues are mitigated when playing cooperatively. Enemies are easier to take down with a friend or three by your side, and if you go down, you’ll likely be rezzed. But, having friends along makes the thinness of the game’s structure all the more apparent. Given that the missions aren’t really missions at all, just hunts for the next map or audiolog, and that your friends may not be attempting to accomplish the same objectives as you anyway, cooperative play requires a make-your-own-fun ethic. The best case scenario is that this leads to you and your friends taking down a giant robot together in a fun dynamic fight. But, in my experience, it mostly involved me and my friend listlessly looking for and trading loot. Again, this felt like PUBG, but as exciting as PUBG would be if the circle never constricted and you could just hang out in an abandoned barn until the end of time.
There are moments, though, where Avalanche’s vision for a mysteriously desolate isle shines through. On Sunday, I spotted a section on my map where a large structure sat on top of a mountain. I couldn’t tell anything else from the flat 2D rendering, so I decided to investigate for myself. I slowly climbed the mountain, aware that a pack of robohounds could be anywhere. When I reached the top—instead of the endlessly repeating palette-swapped houses—I was surprised to find the ruins of a castle. I began to investigate; I had never seen anything remotely like this in the game before. For a moment, it gave me a glimpse of what Generation Zero could have in store for me, out there in the wild. And then a pack of robohounds wrecked me with a little help from one of the big boys with the missile launchers. Once I loaded into the safehouse, I set off again, hoping to explore the castle further. But, the dogs wrecked me again, and I gave up.
Maybe I’ll return later, with a friend by my side, and put those mean good boys down—the buddy I’ve spent the most time playing with really likes this game, for what it’s worth, and will probably continue playing after I move on. But, right now, the sense of mystery that this world occasionally provides is overshadowed by frustration and purposelessness.
Generation Zero code provided for PC by the publisher
Generation Zero is out now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One