TL:DR
$45 ‘stable’ release, comes with same unfulfilled promises from 8+ years ago.
I really enjoyed this game, I have over 1000 hours on steam and have no idea how much I played on ps4. Hell, the reason I built my pc was to play this game (and custom cod zombies). That being said, I would not pay $45 for the current ‘stable’ release, probably worth it under $10.
My main beef is $45. Thats how much you charge for a finished game, but this is far from finished. Their own roadmap includes crossplay, weather upgrades, a wardrobe, NPC’s, and bandits. This roadmap is 18 months long, if they can deliver all of their promises the game will be 12 years old then. (They will not)
NPC’s and bandits are especially interesting to me, because I bought this game for pc in 2017, not too long after reading this blog post
https://joelhuenink.tumblr.com/post/144526427828/bandits-weve-got-the-heavy-bandit-armor-done-and
This is just about how every alpha has gone since then, big youtube and twich promotions, lots of promises, and then, a small, incrimental update.
Last, but not least, the current game kind of sucks. The hitboxes are better than when they first updated the UNITY engine after a16, but still shit. There is a spot in the zombie’s shoulder that if you hit them with an arrow, the game chokes for a couple of frames then they do a cool spin. Each and every poi has invisible barriers (and has since a16) which cause agro, so walk in room, back out, slowly hit with (object). Skill progression is tied behind xp based points, reading rng magazines, and there is a perk that increases your loot, but there are other perks to increase the specific magazine loot.
Really didn’t play much since a17, but I’ve played a few hours of each alpha since. This 1.0 is no different, but I cannot get over that price.
I was blown away they wanted 45 bucks. I feel like I saw it for 7 dollars a few times a year.
Probably their last attempt at milking more money out of it before it’s forgotten to time. I was wondering if Xbox or PlayStation have a hard time limit on how long an EA game can remain in such a state, seeing as this one has been in “alpha” for over 10 years on PC and 8 years for PS4/XB1.
Either way, the game is janky as hell. I’ve tried getting into it, but the jank is just too much to ignore for me. It’s insane they’re asking $45 for such an unpolished mess that’s pretending to be complete and hasn’t really added much meaningful content in ages.
Yup, I picked it up for $7 to play with friends last year. It’s worth double that, but not $45. I still play with them sometimes but it isn’t my favorite.
Somewhat unrelated, this game has one of the worst menu systems I have ever seen. It’s astounding how unintuitive it is.