Generation Zero

Generation Zero entered the dojo with a good idea: create a Swedish countryside abandoned to hostile machines, where every quiet road could turn into a fight for survival. Sadly, that promise is about as far as the excitement goes. The world looks great and there are moments when stumbling across a massive machine in the distance creates exactly the kind of tension the game is aiming for. Unfortunately, those moments are far too rare to carry the experience.

The combat becomes rather boring due to encounters often involving repetitive shooting, running, looting, and shooting some more. The same enemies appear over and over, ammunition and resources are hard to manage, and the progression does little to make the grind feel worth it. What should feel like surviving against overwhelming odds instead feels like fighting the game's systems as much as the machines themselves.

The open world doesn't help much either. There is plenty of space to explore, but not nearly enough interesting things happening in it to justify the expoloration. Missions and objectives can feel repetitive, and the promising survival atmosphere gradually gets replaced by simply doing the same handful of activities over and over again. Generation Zero has the skeleton of an interesting game, but too many of its systems feel unfinished or underdeveloped.

This old sensei can respect the idea, but idea alone doesn't earn honor. Generation Zero has a great premise and flashes of a much better game buried somewhere underneath the repetition, but those flashes aren't enough to make the experience worthwhile. This warrior doesn't need a little more training—it needs to go back to the beginning and rethink its discipline.