Recent reviews by 64M3R

Trash game.
-Biased heavily towards Killer.
-The vast majority of the game is Pay to Win as paying players get access to New Killers, New Perks, New Abilities which free players do NOT have and will need to grind for Months just to get 1 of em.
-Devs are absolutely braindead and keep nerfing survivors, baby-proofing their game for the killers. When the killers are already mostly Overpowered.

This game needs to die, it's an affront to the game development industry and one of the biggest examples of Company Greed I've seen in my lifetime.

Only play this garbage if you're a masochist and love to suffer.

It's in Early Early Access so I'll say this:
Do you wanna goof around with a bunch of friends when you're bored? Then sure for 3$ you might have some fun.
[Recommended]
Do you wanna play an actual game, do objectives, make progress, win? Then I suggest you wait because right now this game is Barely playable.
[Not Recommended]

Complaints:
* A lot of bugs, like the Audio looping and killing my ears, some audio sounds being louder than a banshee while others are so quiet you can barely hear em, you can get stuck in a lot of locations on the map, Enemy AI is... no way to sugar coat it but brainless and sometimes cheats.
* The whole gun aiming is really annoying, character has Parkinsons or something.
* Inventory scroll is reversed for some reason.
* The Tutorial is almost useless, literally tells you nothing about the game other than the controls.
* The game has 0 balancing for smaller team players, I do NOT recommend you try to play this solo or with only 2 people, you will either die after 2 nights or you will spend the next 3 hours running around blind.
* The UI is... Chaos. Literally CHAOS. Who designed this? For god's sake man put some structure into it. Reading the controls gave me dyslexia, I didn't have dyslexia before but now I do. Sort the keybinds in Rows and Columns. Right now It literally looks like a HTML document without any CSS.
* Everything is randomized, so if you spawn at a location with No items, not even a flashlight... Good. Luck. Could've at least added the option to Buy and Bring your own items. Even Lethal Company has a Store.

Complements:
* Graphics look decent.
* it's a really fun concept.
* There's a lot of different stuff on the map you can fool around with, vehicles, guns, melee, a helicopter...
* With some hard work it can become a great game.

Needs more polish. A LOT more polish.
I know it's in early access but it's been 4 years in development.

I guess I'll start with the good.
It's got a great concept. A large open map with various objectives and survival items.
Which is better than the Left 4 Dead linear path. It's like DayZ in a way only with a LOT more zombies. If you find the right squad and If you manage to group up, you will have fun.

But... it has plenty of negatives which need to be addressed.

Here's some feedback for the devs, if they read these reviews.
- Lobbies/Networking: give players an option for private lobbies. As of right now it's total chaos, there are a lot of players who rush the main objective and Extract before you've even made it half way though the map.
Also there's a LOT of latency. I'm getting an average of 120 ping. Which is annoying when you have to headshot Red zombies.

- Buff Melee: As of right now Melee is pretty much useless. Going in with a melee you will likely get swarmed and 1 lag spike will kill you.
Two Handed heavy melee should ALWAYS 1 shot zombies if you aim for the head. If I hit them with a sledgehammer, literally blow half their head off, they should not be running towards me.
OR Nerf Red-eyes zombies.

- Keep Squads together: What's the point of me teaming up with friends if we're gonna be thrown around the map like every other player?

- Character Perma-death: I'm really not a fan of this one, but as long as you Balance the Profile leveling so it's not this grindy, then I can accept it. As of right now leveling my Profile is way too tedious for the Character reset to make sense.

- Pipebombs: more like firecrackers.
In theory: It's supposed to draw the zombies attention and then explode once they all group up around it.
In practice: it just makes a lot of noise, zombies stare at it but don't bother walking to it, then it explodes in a very small radius.
the cons outweigh the pros. Fix it by making the zombies run towards it at the same pace as when they try to grab the player.

- Zombie Spawns: THIS is my biggest issue so far. You HAVE to fix this, it's completely unacceptable. I can literally see zombies spawning in mid-air on top of my friends. It's quite literally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. There should be at minimum a 10 meter safe-zone around players where zombies can't spawn. Why would you want to have zombies spawn ON TOP of or BEHIND players?
Have them spawn away from players and Walk to them, like literally every other Horde game has done, even Left 4 Dead.
It not only ruins the immersion but makes it impossible to do objectives in smaller squads.
You can't Clear rooms or buildings because every time you turn around a zombie spawns behind you.
I tried to do CQC clearing, completely pointless. You check a corner, it's clear, you turn around, zombie grabs you from that same corner.

- There's a lot of desync issues. Players getting stuck in healing animation, melee or shots missing zombies, zombies T-Posing when they're supposed to be laying on the floor... Beef up your servers or make it peer 2 peer with smaller squads. That should fix the issue.

- Performance issues: I know a lot of people are having performance issues. The MAIN culprits are Shadows and Shaders. Put all settings on High, but keep Shadows and Shaders on Low. That should fix your FPS.
Devs need to optimize their shadows a bit, currently it's very GPU heavy.

The gameplay is in some ways inspired by Soulslike games, you have to rely on Dodging and Parrying enemies if you want to survive. In your path you will find Checkpoints similar to Bonfires and when you die you will respawn there. You also gain souls from enemies you defeat which is both your Experience and Currency.

Although I would say this is one of the most Casual/Easier soulslike games. So if you've ever been frustrated with Elden Ring or Dark Souls being too hard or using cheesy tactics to kill you, give this game a try.
There aren't any convoluted Attributes for you to upgrade, there aren't any classes.
The only thing you can upgrade is your base Stats like HP, Mana, Stamina, Defense and Attack... while also finding items which will boost your secondary Stats like Crit and Resistance.
You also have Skill points to spend on a few different skills and upgrades for those skills. And don't worry about farming enemies, if you explore the game and don't rush bosses you will have plenty of skillpoints to spend.
The game also allows you to change your gear and build at every Shrine (bonfire), so you can easily mix-match and test different upgrades as you like. So Don't hoard points.

There's also a small variety of weapons, each one with 1-3 basic stats like Attack and Crit + some bonus effects unique to that weapon. There's also plenty of armor pieces with similar Defense stats and some bonus effects, Full armor Sets will give you extra bonuses too.

There's also plenty of side-quests in the game, NPCs you will meet on your path. BUT these side quests can be missed, there is no indication of there being a quest, there is no journal, there is no tracking, nothing.
It's the one thing I HATE about soulslike games, you can very easily pass an interesting and sometimes vital quest just because you didn't annoy an NPC enough or you passed by them.

The game starts off difficult, so much like other soulslike games you will have to learn how to dodge, parry and perfect those two. The game offers a tutorial and Demo video for every skill, however there are a lot of things the game Fails to tell you.
For example, the game doesn't tell you:
* There are many different Combos. Combos can be executed by switching from light attack to heavy or heavy to light attack.
* using a Combo during an enemy attack is a Parry. A failed parry will make your staff glow White, a successful parry will make your staff glow Red. Parries block all damage and give you a damage buff.
* ALL enemies have item drops, some are basic currency, others useful items like Curios. But the drop chances are very low.
* Using spirit form resets all your buffs and debuffs.
* You can still do everything without Stamina, but your stats are nerfed by half.

The game also has a very well crafted and interesting story. If you're into Chinese Mythos you will be familiar with most of the story, however they put their own twist on it. There's a lot of well made cutscenes and even some Animated cartoons / musicals.

The game has 2 Endings in total. The first one is pretty basic, you just have to beat the game. The second "True" ending requires you to do many sidequests and beat secret bosses in every chapter of the game. I recommend you follow a guide because like I said, you can very easily miss quests in this game.

The game's graphics are pretty standard for 2024. It uses Unreal Engine 5 and it utilizes most of it's tools.
It can look great on High-End PCs, however lower-end PCs or even Mid-range PCs will be struggling to achieve the same Good looks.
A HUGE negative, this game has forced TAA and DLSS. So if you're playing on a 1080p monitor, you will see a lot of ghosting and pixelization. In fact it's some of the worst ghosting I've seen in the past five years.
The only way to fix the game's annoying graphical glitches on low-medium PCs, is to use Nvidia's DSR feature and upscale the game to 1440p or Above. But unless you have a decent RTX card... well keep a fire extinguisher nearby.

Overall it's a fun game, fun even for more casual players that don't like soulslike games. I do recommend you try it and play it past the first chapter, that's when things get interesting. It has some flaws here and there, some worse than others, but they're more an inconvenience than game breaking.

Pros:
*Good graphics
*unique gameplay
*spooky maps
*lots of ghost interaction
*Physics objects, Ghost can quite literally flip over the entire sofa
*devs are very open to feedback

cons:
*some of the ghosts feel same-ish
*most of the items are not evidence related (could be Pro/Con depending on if you like doing No Evidence Phasmo)
*Graphics as well as other settings lack options
*It's very difficult for new players to understand the mechanics

Keep in mind this is all for the Demo, full release might change / improve / remove features.

TLDR; Gameplay is fun as hell for about 30h. Audio and Visuals are great and immersive. Devs fumbled the ball on Optimization, forced DLSS/TSR/TAA, and their "minimum requirements" being somewhat False.

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+In short it feels like Gears of War + Doom. Combat feels great, the kill animations are awesome, the Space Marines actually look and feel like Space Marines, the Xenos are relentless and uncountable.

+You can either turn off your brain and just go BRRRR with your Bolter, or you can play it like Doom rushing enemies with your Chainsword or Powerfist and executing gory finishers, or you can play it tactically using various weapons and abilities to purge the Xenos.

+Game has a decent length Story mode, which you can Co-Op with friends.
It also has Secondary missions in addition to the Story mode which is like an Alternative perspective from a different squad in the same mission. This features new classes and skills.

+It also has PvP and PvE modes which you can play later after finishing the Story. where in the Story you're stuck playing the main protagonist. In the Co-Op and PvP modes you have different skills, classes, perks and customization.

+In terms of customization the game provides you with a lot of different Chapters to choose from, from Dark Templars to Blood Angels, you can make your character look however you want. They even have a Segmented Customization where you can paint and customize each limb separately, as if you're painting your own figurine.

Overall gameplay is pretty fun and you are guaranteed to have a great time for at least 20-30h.

The complaints I have are:
-It can get very repetitive in Co-Op and Multiplayer missions, especially since there's only a handful of them and the game is very grindy. You will essentially be playing through the same mission 6 times if you want to master all difficulties or 30+ times if you want to Max Level a single class.
Of course you could do PvP operations and level that way, but there's a very big gap between some classes in terms of usefulness and "fun". So likely for some of the classes you will have to master them in those Co-Op missions instead.

-the Multiplayer section is almost completely disjointed from the Singleplayer section. Jetpack work differently than what you're told in the tutorial. Certain classes and abilities have different mechanics and their perks nerfed. Jumping into PvP you will be very confused why your Co-Op skills and Tactics no longer work.

-The tutorial is kinda half-baked. It doesn't tell you a lot of important stuff and useful tips. It also doesn't explain that certain skills work differently in Multiplayer. It offers no explanation for how finisher animations work. So while it does explain the Basics, you will have to watch a YouTube video for the rest or just hope you discover it by yourself before hopping into Multiplayer.

-Some of the classes feel a bit basic and very limited. Everyone has their own favorite, but there are certain classes that perform better than others, both in PvP and Co-Op.

-Most of the weapons are the same. If you're playing through the Story missions or Co-Op and you're worried about "Which gun should I use?" ... don't be. They're all more or less the same. Scoped Bolter, Normal Bolter, Heavy Bolter, it's all just a Bolter. You will feel almost 0 difference when fighting the Xenos. There are a couple of exceptions of course, like the plasma and melta guns, but the majority of the Arsenal is more or less the same gun with a different attachment.

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+I don't have much to say here other than, The soundtrack is great, the voice acting is great, the guns and xenos and gore all good. They did a fantastic job in the Audio department.

-Small nitpick, the characters often Repeat the same voice-lines in Co-Op. It can get very annoying especially if you're grinding for Max Level. I swear if I hear one of them jest about "besting my guard in combat" again for the 400th time, I will throw them to the Xenos.

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+There are some very good scenes where you just want to stand there and take a picture of the background to use as your Wallpaper. The visuals are great. Enough said.

+All the character designs, enemy designs and environment design looks very detailed. There are no flaws that I could find. It shows that a lot of care was put into designing the world of this game.

So why the slightly above average score? Optimization.
Well... all that falls apart when you play the game on anything less than High settings.
The dev posted "Minimum" and "Recommended" requirements are total BS.
If you're planning on buying this game and your hardware is anywhere near the posted Minimum, you will get scammed.

Their "Recommended" settings will push your hardware to the limit to get 60FPS on maxed settings. Invest in liquid cooling. There has been more than a few reported cases of people having their CPUs overheating or GPUs going full blast.

As for the "Minimum" requirements. Don't even try. I'm not kidding, you will not enjoy this game.
Because for some Ungodly reason every post 2020 game has decided to force TAA and DLSS, if you play this game with the "minimum" hardware on a 1080 screen, it will look like garbage. You cannot play this without an RTX card if you want to have responsive combat or good visuals.

Because on the "minimum" requirements you will be forced to use Lowest settings, DLSS, TSR and TAA will ruin your eyes.
Everything is so blurry you can't tell the Xenos from the Grass. It's like trying to play the game through foggy prescription glasses and the eye doctor gave you the wrong glasses. That combined with barely pushing 30fps in combat scenes and well... prepare a vomit bucket nearby.

Even with a 3060 TI and a 1080p monitor I felt motion sick trying to play the game. I had to use Nvidia DSR to upscale my monitor to 1440p so DLSS wouldn't make everything look like mush, or TAA make me see double with it's insane ghosting.

If you want to enjoy the visuals of this game I recommend a decent RTX card and a 2K monitor as your "Minimum Requirements", not whatever the hell the devs have posted on the Steam Store.

Such a shame that they failed to optimize this game for 1080p monitors and are still forcing DLSS, TAA and TSR as their ONLY options. Other options exist guys. Games have looked great even before DLSS existed.
This I think is a huge oversight by the devs especially since the Steam Hardware Survey from August 2024 shows that the most common resolution used is 1080p at 56%, second most common being 1440p at 19.8%

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Edit 10.09.2024: The devs are working their butts off to improve the game. Gameplay Balance, Performance tweaks, new content. While the game is not perfect and does have it's fair share of faults, I fully support passionate developers who actually give a damn about their community

Edit 01.01.2025: Most of the graphical issues have been fixed as well as the balance. However the Space Marines in the new update feel slow, sluggish and more like a Fat old man than a Super Soldier. Actually scratch that, I've seen 200kg fat guys move faster.

Also the AI allies/bots are completely useless. They just stand there confused, doing nothing, not bothering to use abilities when they should, using them when they shouldn't, Heavy going sniper, Sniper going melee, Refusing to help you shoot at enemies, refusing to Execute enemies... I'm not joking when I say the Counter Strike 1.6 bots are smarter.

Positives:

* It's a WW2 RTS game much like Company of Heroes, with a few differences.
There's no base building. the entirety of your military is based on a Roster you choose before the mission.
Units you deploy are limited by Numbers and Supply. The enemy can win if they kill all of your squads.

* It's somewhat realistic. Each unit has ammunition they can deplete.
Armored vehicles have armor, penetration, etc. So vehicle orientation matters, as well as accuracy.
Most units have camouflage, which is useful if you want to Hide your troops. Spotting is a thing so you can go stealth in certain rare situations.

* The overall map design and combat scenarios of the campaign were fun. I love the mechanics of the game where it allows you to take Manual control of any unit. You can command a squad of tanks to assault a position, take control of one tank and lead the assault yourself.

* There's also a decent number of unit types and vehicle types. A decent number of support structures and constructions. There's even different ammunition types, which does make a difference when you're fighting with Vehicles.

In short it's as if Enlisted or War Thunder was an RTS. Which for me is all positive.

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Negative:

* The AI is dumb. And I don't mean that as an insult, it seriously lacks any logical thinking. You have to babysit every single unit so they don't do something stupid, especially when they're in a large group.

Ordered a large squad to take cover in a trench? expect half of them to stand outside the trench.
Ordered a group of vehicles to move to a position? expect them to bump into every wall and vehicle on the way there. Finally after arriving at their destination by headbutting their way through... there's a good chance they will position their Rear towards the enemy.

It's like your units are brainless puppets and require you to bark orders at them every second. No concept of Armor, cover, or proper positioning.
Even their accuracy is often questionable as they seem to aim for Center mass, instead of weak spots.
I guess... get good at micro-managing? If you're commanding a Tank, you're better off controlling it's gun Manually for better accuracy.

* The Interface or Game screen is lacking in terms of feedback. It's very difficult to notice certain things like: Your units throwing a grenade, when someone is reloading, etc. You either have to zoom in on the tiny icons above their heads, or just click and hope something happens.

* Controls. Jesus. Christ. Look I know Controls for an RTS are difficult because you have 30 different commands, but RTS games are not a new invention, they have existed since the year 2000. If Starcraft, Warcraft, Red Alert, etc can all have a control scheme that makes sense, so can You.
There is absolutely NO reason for me to be using the F1-F12 keys in any situation when there's 160 different possible combinations on the W-Z keys.
In short, the control scheme is very cluttered and has no alphabetical or priority sorting.

* Some of the campaign missions are literally impossible on higher difficulties. To me it feels like the devs tried to add padding to the game, to inflate the play hours just by making you restart missions multiple times. Combine that with the 0 IQ AI and well... good luck.

* Lastly, all Campaign characters have AI generated voices. (at least from what I could tell)
This for me is a negative. I don't want ChatGPT in my games.
I don't like robotic sounding characters with 0 personality.

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Summary:

I don't recommend this because it has too many flaws and it's frustrating having to micro every unit independently in order for them to not be useless. On top of that it feels unfinished and unpolished. For the same price, you can find better RTS games.

But I guess if you enjoy the Manual Control gimmick, give it a try.

Cons:
*Uses a Kernel level Anti-Cheat.
*Has plenty of bugs (code).
*Discord moderators can be toxic.
*A bit grindy.
*Some of the social features do not work on PC because of the trash PSN integration.
*The looming Eye of Sauron (Sony) who can decide to take away your access to this Paid product just because they feel like it.
* Nerf, Nerf, Nerf, Nerf. Devs have no idea how to balance this game and only listen to 5% of the snowflakes in the community who scream the loudest.
* Devs are very happy to sacrifice "Fun" for "Grind" and nerf everything fun to the ground.

Pros:
*Starship Troopers nostalgia.
*It's a fun game where you can turn off your brain for a few hours and cause some mayhem.
*Kernel Anti-Cheat doesn't Instantly Ban you if you accidentally run a program it doesn't like. Instead the game closes and it gives you a warning. (unlike some other crappy games like Warframe.)

Recommend? Yes and No.
Visually the game is stunning, Although it's gameplay is limited and it loses it's scare factor very quickly and the tension building atmosphere gets ruined by scripted events.

Pros: great graphics, character customization, lobby customization, good atmosphere, unique ways of exercising the ghost, unique ghost models, secret lore.

Cons: game fails to remember the graphics settings so you have to "refresh" them every time you start, more often than not a lot of the ghost's abilities are meaningless as the goal of the game is to kill it before it hunts, many many scripted events/jumpscares which are completely unrelated to the ghost which cause confusion at first and quickly become irritating or funny, very few maps.

As it stands by my standards and many other people's, this game is nowhere close to being 1.0. The fact that the developers decided to make it 1.0 makes me worried they're going to abandon it and leave it half-baked like their previous games. So in the state that the game is currently...

If you want a Haunted House / Jumpscare Mansion type game that you will play for about 10h then forget, go ahead and buy it.
If you want a Phasmophobia style game that you will play for 100+ hours, I do NOT recommend you buy it. (unless the devs expand on the game more and remove the scripted jumpscares)

Instead buy Metaphysical which is 10 euro (cheaper), has a ton more content, an active community on discord and direct communication with the developers, who also put out regular updates.

Note: Review edited, go to bottom.
Pros:
-Many hours of gameplay. The game features Elden Ring like open world and zones, however each zone is randomized per playthrough per player.
-Most of the items in the game are hidden, forcing you to explore and hunt for secrets if you want to use any cool weapons or armor. Great for players that like scavenger hunts.
-It's not extremely difficult like Dark Souls but also not too easy. I'd say it's the perfect balance.
-Graphically it looks great and the audio is decent also, although the soundtrack is not very memorable.
-Features many classes and weapon types, allowing each player to build for a specific scenario or team composition.
-Drop-in Co-op. With Friends or Randoms. 4 players Max.

Cons:
-Runs like a trash compactor on fire. My RTX 3060 Ti is constantly on fire, there seems to be no optimization for this game's assets whatsoever. Changing the graphics settings has little to no impact.
-Many... Many... Many bugs. I'm not kidding. If you're playing the campaign and only doing the main story, you might only encounter 1 or 2 bugs. IF like me you choose to explore the many secrets and collect all the equipment in the game, you will encounter dozens. I'm not talking minor bugs either... I'm talking bugs that will force you to Die or even RESET YOUR ENTIRE CAMPAIGN/ADVENTURE. Wasting hours of your time. Some have been fixed by the devs. Many remain.
-Clutter. The game has a lot of items such as: weapons, armor, rings, amulets and the good ol Dark Souls flask aka Relic. However a LOT of these, and I do mean a lot of these, are completely useless in terms of performance or pretty much equivalent to each other. The only Unique or remotely Useful items you will find are hidden away in the farthest corners of the map behind some very cryptic secrets that will 100% require a guide. Everything else you will find in your campaign is mediocre.
It also doesn't help that RNG plays the biggest role in this. Many items and Quests are locked behind RNG. Meaning if you don't have them in your world, you need to Reset and try again. Over... and Over...

Summary:
This game is fun, I'm not gonna lie. If you're looking for a game and you plan on just rushing the campaign without bothering with any of the side quests... Go for it. Buy it and enjoy.
But if you're like me and you want to experience this game in it's entirety... I'd say wait for bug fixes or a Sale and get it cheaper.
I've literally wasted tens of hours of frustration trying to bypass bugs or get good RNG. To the point where Fun turned into Chore.

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Edit: The devs have been very active in fixing many bugs, their patch notes are literally too long for 1 post. Considering the dedication of the devs and how much the game has improved since release, Many of the softlock bugs have been fixed by now.

But be warned there are still Many... MANY bugs. If you're a completionist like me and want to get 100% in this game you WILL pull your hair out due to the amount of dumb bugs that will soflock and block you from doing so.

If you're still unconvinced of just how much of a buggy mess this game is, look at the discussion forums or look on reddit. Out of all my hours spent playing this game, at least half of them were me punching a wall in my room out of frustration.

I will NOT recommend this game at full price. Wait for a 50% discount. Developers need to learn to Release FULL games if they want FULL price. Half-assed games deserve Half-price.

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Edit2: There have been a lot of Bug fixes and QoL updates. The game is currently playable without encountering too many bugs so I could recommend it at maybe a 20% discount. However a lot of the root issues still exist.