Editorials
‘Generation Zero is a Great Sci Fi Survival Concept, But a Frustrating Mess to Play
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
Comics
‘Spider-Noir’ Comic Changes Explained: How the TV Series Reinvents Marvel’s Darkest Spider-Man
A little while back, I wrote an article chronicling the Hellraiser franchise’s affinity for Film Noir and touched on how that genre has, historically, always been connected to horror.
This connection can be observed in everything from the cannibalistic serial killers of Frank Miller’s Sin City to the disturbing criminal plots fueling neo-noir thrillers like Stuart Gordon’s underrated King of the Ants. That’s why it came as no surprise when I finally sat down to watch all eight episodes of Prime Video’s recently released Spider-Noir series and was confronted with plenty of classic horror tropes.
What did come as a surprise, however, was how showrunners Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot approached these horror elements when compared to the 2009 comic book that the show is based on. From the heavily altered rogue’s gallery to an equally terrifying yet completely different origin story for Nicolas Cage’s take on the webslinger, there are plenty of changes here that I feel might be of interest to genre fans.
With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to take a closer look at all the adjustments that Spider-Noir made to the story in order to bring this incarnation of Spider-Man to life in all of its monochromatic glory (unless you watched the True-Hue color version of the show, in which case you’ll be treated to a surprisingly comic-booky palette that you don’t usually see on television).
The Dark Origins of Marvel’s Spider-Man Noir
Our first order of business should be to examine the origins of the Noir comics themselves. Originally published as part of the Marvel Noir alternate universe that reimagined several characters as hard-boiled crime-fighters, Spider-Man Noir became the most successful book in the entire run. This highly politicized story about Peter Parker coming to terms with the capitalist evils of the Great Depression seemed to have struck a nerve with audiences looking for a darker take on the wall-crawler, which is likely why we’d soon see several sequel stories as well as a video game adaptation of the character in 2010’s underrated Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
Of course, it wasn’t just Spider-Man’s darker disposition that made this version of the character a hit, as 1930s New York City was depicted as being much more hostile than what we generally see in the standard Marvel Universe. From Peter’s powers coming from an Eldritch Spider God that spawns man-eating arachnids to Vulture being an ex-Freak-Show Gimp with a taste for human flesh, you can definitely understand why this Web-Head isn’t pulling his punches.
Unfortunately, this alternate universe was a little too popular for its own good, with each subsequent sequel/adaptation further diluting the political anger and classic horror influences that fueled the original comic-book run in order to appeal to a wider audience. Spider-Man Noir was nearly unrecognizable once we got to the Spider-Verse crossover that turned the character into a household name, though this would at least lead to an interesting adaptation in 2018.
The Classic Horror Influences Hidden Throughout Spider-Noir
Jack Huston as Sandman in ‘Spider-Noir’
When Phil Lord and Chris Miller finally translated Spider-Man Noir to the big screen, with Nicolas Cage bringing the character to life in an unexpected case of pitch-perfect casting, he was still mostly relegated to comic relief as his nazi-punching antics and over-the-top edginess were played for laughs. However, while this version of the character had little to do with the comics that spawned him, Spider-Noir’s newfound popularity eventually resulted in the announcement of a darker live-action spin-off – a spin-off that I was cautiously optimistic about.
While the showrunners ultimately decided to go in a completely different direction than the 2009 comic, the new team of writers appeared to understand Noir as a genre in ways that even the folks at Marvel Noir couldn’t quite grasp. That’s likely why 2026’s Spider-Noir boasts plenty of horror elements, just not in ways we’ve seen them before.
The series is obviously borrowing tropes and aesthetics from period-accurate monster movies, with Universal’s 1930s output being a particularly big influence. From the re-imagining of Sandman and Tombstone as tragic figures to The Spider even being operated on by a mad scientist with hilariously antiquated techniques, this bizarre collection of super-powered freaks could have easily shown up in a classic creature feature.
The scares aren’t all retro, however, as the showrunners also injected plenty of body-horror into the mix during their attempt at unifying the origin stories for all these larger-than-life characters. Hell, the Spider himself is now revealed to have gained his powers after being bitten by a half-mutated Man-Spider during World War I, and the aforementioned mad scientist keeps a disturbing collection of failed experiments in her basement, proving that not all of her patients were lucky enough to simply gain superpowers after being experimented on.
Nicolas Cage Reinvents Spider-Man Noir for Television
Ben Reilly/Spiderman (Nicolas Cage) in SPIDER-NOIR
Photo: Aaron Epstein/Prime
© Amazon Content Services LLC
I also really appreciate how Cage insists on depicting Ben Reilly as an arachnid trapped inside of a human body, with his uncanny physical performance and classic Hollywood impressions keeping your eyes glued to the screen while also providing some of the show’s funniest moments.
I still think it’s a shame that the character is no longer politically motivated, and I miss the detail about Uncle Ben having been cannibalized by Vulture after his social activism ruffled too many feathers, but at least this time our protagonist actually feels like someone who could have been written by Raymond Chandler if he were a fan of Superheroes.
In fact, the writers nailed the snappy back-and-forth that Noir authors like Dashiel Hammett used to refer to as the “riposte”, and it’s fun to see supervillains being depicted as horrific movie monsters instead of specialized henchmen – with The Spider feeling like just as much of a Freak Show attraction as the rest of them. Purists might be put off by the lack of reverence for the source material, but I think that’s a small price to pay when even the show’s most clichéd moments intentionally harken back to the golden age of Hollywood.
That’s why I’d argue that Amazon’s Spider-Noir isn’t really an adaptation, but rather an equally valid take on the same premise that inspired Marvel back in 2009. And in a world filled with recycled storylines that only serve to advertise future releases, I’d rather have two completely different visions of the same character than a straight-up retelling of the same handful of ideas.
At the end of the day, there’s enough space inside this comic fan’s heart for both man-eating Vultures and a Cronenberg-inspired Man-Spider. And if you’re also a fan of nostalgic creature features with comic book flair, I’d highly recommend this street-level superhero story with a spooky twist.
You must be logged in to post a comment.