I can see the work that went into the game. And some parts are really nice. The story is nice and there are some sidequests that want to be discovered.

I really would have loved to like this game. Unfortunately it is horribly unbalanced and buggy.

You are forced to sit through cutscenes, even if you have seen them before. During some special quests with the little boy Cody you are forced to hit ok two or three times after every step because there is some unnecessary dialog like "i have found ...", "ok". Some options are super buggy and force you to make a choice. Like you have to select one penalty trait. but you can only proceed if you select a certain option.

It is a lot of grinding. Collecting ingredients. But unfortunately quite unbalanced. You can buy backbag upgrades. Apparently this item gets more expensive each time. I tried to buy one on day 18, but it was just unaffordable. Why even bother to offer it.

UNDYING is currently quite an unenjoyable title, despite the departure from Early Access. From someone who is into challenging games and likes most other difficult/hardcore survival titles, here are a few glaring issues that made me want to quit playing UNDYING:

- difficulty modes feel very unbalanced. the main balance of difficulty is between the passage of time per day, and the health/damage of zombies and NPCs. Essentially, easy mode gives an appropriate amount of time to visit a location or two and deal with a random encounter, while normal mode only allows you enough time for ONE total location per day unless you absolutely speedrun (this means not spending time looting/scavenging, which is essential in this game). I assume considering the game's premise, normal mode is even more difficult since your infection will only continue to get worse. By day 6 random encounters sometimes meant I had to completely reset since there wasn't enough time to continue traveling and doing the main objective. Additionally, easy mode enemy health/damage is trivial and boring, while normal feels fair. With the absence of any custom difficulty settings, neither Easy or Normal mode leans toward an enjoyable experience.

-Autosave occurs too often and can completely ruin your run, as it did mine. The game autosaves after every location change. This means that if the game autosaves right before you're about to die (which, small spoiler, always happens at 2am), and you haven't manually saved recently, the autosave will trigger right before you die. This is a terrible mechanic since the time the game gives you to play each day is so limited, you're encouraged to use it as much as you can, meaning that if you make the mistake of using a few extra real-life seconds doing something at night, it could completely ruin your save. Terrible system, autosave should only occur when you enter a new REGION not every single interior (your home has 3 separate interiors, which autosaves every time you enter a new one).

- Quests, dialogue, and random events feel very barebones for full release. Much of the dialogue has errors, with repeating dialogue during conversations, important locations being replaced with their actual distance (e.g. "Survivor Camp" appears as "6km" and can be confusing when multiple locations are being discussed mid conversation). The quests are mostly "go fetch me this" which feels terrible considering the incredible speed of the game; many times you will spend half a day traveling to a quest location, only to have an NPC tell you to fetch an item, requiring you to reset the entire day. The constant "escort quest" of leading Cody around doesn't bother me too much since that's the crux of the game, but his AI mid combat is very frustrating to deal with.

- A lot of the mechanics are unexplained, and the UI doesn't help either. There was very little explanation on how to upgrade your backpack (it has to be done through the inventory menu), along with the upgrades of many different benches/items. Again since time is of the essence ingame, the lack of explanation only led to more wasted time. Also the camera angle being unchangeable was quite annoying at first, and leads to missing a few items here and there without just staring at the minimap all the time.

There's a few more issues I have but these are definitely the top ones. After restarting my run and giving the game another chance, I still think UNDYING has some solid potential and substance to it and could be good in a few months with appropriate balance fixes and some polish, however in its current state I still wouldn't recommend it for the game it's trying to be, especially when it's now out of EA.

I have played many beta versions of this game and every few months it gets a lot! of additional content. The combat is exactly what I would want in a zombie game, and the characters are all incredibly designed. The difficulty raises insane amounts as time passes on. The story mode is very long and satisfying for almost every single area. Kingdom mode looks like it has a lot of potential and a whole new way to play entirely; Survival mode I found a lil too difficult even though I really hate super easy games.. But to each his own.. I would recommend this game at full price but Steam has so many sales! Give it a try!!