Let me tell you about a game called Deadzone Remade:
Deadzone Remade was not unlike many of the DayZ clones that were popping up at the time. It was a mixture of PVP and PVE, with status bars and the other survival mechanics you'd expect from a game at the time. The zombies weren't brilliant, the survival stuff felt like an afterthought, and while the world had a few memorable locations, too much of it felt unmemorable for how small the size of its map was.
But there was something special about that game. What made Deadzone Deadzone wasn't its zombies or survival mechanics but the inherent sense of risk versus reward. If you saw something that enticed you, you could pick it up and store it in a safe house away from the flesh-hungry zombies and untrustworthy players. Or, you could use it on the spot and try to find another one. The safer option might net you loads of supplies for when the time is right, but since they are lost when you die, they're only safe so long as you never use them. Transporting yourself to the safe house wasn't instantaneous, either. You had to make sure you were out of harm's way, safe in a hostile area. Then there was this interesting social mechanic going on. Players were assigned a rank that determined how much of a good or bad person they were. If you went around killing people for no reason, it might drop. But if you killed someone with a low rank, you're seen as a much better person. While this system invariably led to a string of random killings and situations where you couldn't avoid being seen as a worse person, it created interesting social conflicts that made the best out of its multiplayer framework.
Deadzone Remade came out on Roblox in 2014. It's been offline for years, and even if it were to come back online tomorrow, it wouldn't receive much buzz. Roblox, at the time still had this independent, punk-like spirit to it. A big AAA studio wasn't going to make a game like Deadzone Remade because DayZ suited them just fine. Of course, there were the seeds of something more insidious being planted at the time, but that was easy to ignore when so much of what was being played felt new and invigorating.
I say all of this because the game I am talking about was a remake of a game made by the sole creator of Unturned. The story behind why said creator left Roblox isn't too much of a mystery: his games kept being stolen, and I'd like to assume that the obvious limitations Roblox has always had weren't too empowering, either. So he switched to Unity and made Unturned. You might assume from all of my rambling that some of what Deadzone special can be found in Unturned.
And here's where I hate to break it to you: Unturned is the kind of spiritual successor that does everything right and is polished to a tee, but ultimately lacks the individuality of its predecessor. If you stripped away the cute, blocky aesthetic, Unturned wouldn't have anything else going for it. Its survival mechanics work, the social scenarios you can get into are fun, and it rewards exploration--but never in a way that sets it apart from its inspirations. It's not as bland of a game as that description might lead you to believe; again, the blocky-art style absolutely saves this. It's reminiscent of how goofy Roblox's characters were in a zombie apocalypse and mines the unintentional humor that the clash of those two styles generates to general success. It's refreshing to have a take on the zombie survival genre that doesn't treat its subject matter with grit or reverence but revels in just how stupid the whole premise is. By making the art direction the same kinds of colorful whimsy that that same grit tries to run away from, it makes for an experience that brings more smiles to the party than overplayed cowls. Other than that, though, there's nothing worth playing this for, really. It's baby's first survival game. The boorishly simplistic survival mechanics and zombies are carried over almost verbatim here, and without any of Deadzone's stand-out social features, fail to carry what is otherwise a pretty lifeless experience.
I can't help but admire Unturned, but you've played this game before—and better.
(EDIT: Accidentally said "hard to ignore" when I meant "easy." Whoops!)
Deadzone Remade was not unlike many of the DayZ clones that were popping up at the time. It was a mixture of PVP and PVE, with status bars and the other survival mechanics you'd expect from a game at the time. The zombies weren't brilliant, the survival stuff felt like an afterthought, and while the world had a few memorable locations, too much of it felt unmemorable for how small the size of its map was.
But there was something special about that game. What made Deadzone Deadzone wasn't its zombies or survival mechanics but the inherent sense of risk versus reward. If you saw something that enticed you, you could pick it up and store it in a safe house away from the flesh-hungry zombies and untrustworthy players. Or, you could use it on the spot and try to find another one. The safer option might net you loads of supplies for when the time is right, but since they are lost when you die, they're only safe so long as you never use them. Transporting yourself to the safe house wasn't instantaneous, either. You had to make sure you were out of harm's way, safe in a hostile area. Then there was this interesting social mechanic going on. Players were assigned a rank that determined how much of a good or bad person they were. If you went around killing people for no reason, it might drop. But if you killed someone with a low rank, you're seen as a much better person. While this system invariably led to a string of random killings and situations where you couldn't avoid being seen as a worse person, it created interesting social conflicts that made the best out of its multiplayer framework.
Deadzone Remade came out on Roblox in 2014. It's been offline for years, and even if it were to come back online tomorrow, it wouldn't receive much buzz. Roblox, at the time still had this independent, punk-like spirit to it. A big AAA studio wasn't going to make a game like Deadzone Remade because DayZ suited them just fine. Of course, there were the seeds of something more insidious being planted at the time, but that was easy to ignore when so much of what was being played felt new and invigorating.
I say all of this because the game I am talking about was a remake of a game made by the sole creator of Unturned. The story behind why said creator left Roblox isn't too much of a mystery: his games kept being stolen, and I'd like to assume that the obvious limitations Roblox has always had weren't too empowering, either. So he switched to Unity and made Unturned. You might assume from all of my rambling that some of what Deadzone special can be found in Unturned.
And here's where I hate to break it to you: Unturned is the kind of spiritual successor that does everything right and is polished to a tee, but ultimately lacks the individuality of its predecessor. If you stripped away the cute, blocky aesthetic, Unturned wouldn't have anything else going for it. Its survival mechanics work, the social scenarios you can get into are fun, and it rewards exploration--but never in a way that sets it apart from its inspirations. It's not as bland of a game as that description might lead you to believe; again, the blocky-art style absolutely saves this. It's reminiscent of how goofy Roblox's characters were in a zombie apocalypse and mines the unintentional humor that the clash of those two styles generates to general success. It's refreshing to have a take on the zombie survival genre that doesn't treat its subject matter with grit or reverence but revels in just how stupid the whole premise is. By making the art direction the same kinds of colorful whimsy that that same grit tries to run away from, it makes for an experience that brings more smiles to the party than overplayed cowls. Other than that, though, there's nothing worth playing this for, really. It's baby's first survival game. The boorishly simplistic survival mechanics and zombies are carried over almost verbatim here, and without any of Deadzone's stand-out social features, fail to carry what is otherwise a pretty lifeless experience.
I can't help but admire Unturned, but you've played this game before—and better.
(EDIT: Accidentally said "hard to ignore" when I meant "easy." Whoops!)