Probably one of the best zombie games out there but still far from perfect. I'm tough when I rate these types of games as I find zombie games suffer from an unavoidable suck factor of contrived gameplay. I also played about 5 hours of Dying Light 2 and this game is so much better, holy crap. I actually played DL2 on the free weekend while already having this in my library, unplayed, and was motivated to finally check this out.

The main issues I have right now:

The weapon durability system is a pain in the ass. You lose it quickly so you're always dealing with repairing and making new weapons. It feels more annoying than challenging. (I didn't mod it yet as I want the vanilla experience)

Level and damage scaling is lame. I'm really not a fan of games that design weapon damage with random level scaling over the course of a huge damage range. I.E. You continue to find the same weapon type but it scales from like 15 to hundreds of damage by the end game. Just make one weapon do the same damage all the time. Hatchet X should always do Y damage, plus whatever skill modifiers you have. Plus, as you get stronger weapons enemies level scale so you never kill the zombies all that much quicker so whats the point of leveling damage? Creates an illusion of advancement and wastes time.

Bad scripted spawning is a plague in zombie games. You can never thin out an area, not even through quest advancement. Zombie games never account for the fact that there will always be a limited amount of zombies. And in this game you are traversing the same areas over and over. There should at least be a long timer on respawning, not 20 seconds and they will appear out of nowhere right behind you. It makes no sense.
More bad spawning. When you make certain noises you will almost always get these obnoxious 'virals' that appear out of nowhere and run and climb at you. Their yelling is grating on my nerves and they will appear even when there are no zombies around. It reaches a point where they are just annoying, not even challenging. There doesn't seem to be a cool-down timer on it either so it'll trigger multiple times in a row.

Sound design. They put this looped distant screaming and breaking which just grates on me and even makes no sense in many situations given the context of my location and proximity to any zombies. I get they want to keep you on edge but man, like, don't worry bro, I'm on edge already.



Beyond that, combat is satisfying and fun. The story, although cliche and a bit of a stretch at times, is fun and engaging. Feels much better than Dying Light 2. This is pre-ESG slop, which sadly, DL2 suffers from.

Level progression is smooth and I never feel like I'm grinding, which is a huge plus and again, better than DL2, which feels way too grindy and that, alone, turned me off from the game. Some of the skills feel lame and you should have them by default, like sneak kills are only available at the end of your leveling. Weird.

Parkour usually feels good and fun but can be a smidge janky here and there. Not a significant issue.
Graphics hold up well. I wish they released an HD remaster. That would be amazing.

Side missions usually feel important to the world and come in a variety for you to choose. Some are basic fetch, some get you blueprints and useful stuff, some have solid story elements.

You get a variety of items and environmental traps to play with.

You can craft on the fly, which I don't much like in new games but this was the thing back then and it's fine.