Quick Look: Generation Zero

So much potential in this idea. Wish it lived up to that potential

Looks like people are finally getting tired of the usual rote gameplay formula MANY other games have used. Shame it had to happen to this.

And a big shame that it is unfinished.

This game has some cool stuff in it. Too bad it seems to be broken and repetitive.

+1 for the Swedish environments and synth soundtrack.

Somehow this seems like a worse Fallout 76

I have a feeling Avalanche is about fall off the industry

I'm always looking for games that don't hold your hand at all, because I'm getting a little tired of that. But this looks too boring for even me to enjoy. People who want to play something similar might want to check out The Signal From Tölva, which I'm a big fan of.

I'm also getting a little worried about Avalanche :(

This seems like a game made by AI.

Makes me appreciate the subtle orange highlight Division 2 has for interactive objects.

@bathala: Well there is Rage 2. I believe this was done by the American studio that did Just Cause 4.

I think 30 seconds is a new record for a Quick Look going from zero to Alex reference that I don't get.

A game inspired by Simon Stålenhag is a great concept, it's a shame that the actual game isn't good.

West and East don’t usually do Quicklooks together, do they?

Are you talking about his Simon Stålenhag reference? He's an artist that does some cool and moody illustrations of futuristic machinery set on rural towns: https://www.simonstalenhag.se

(edit: apparently links in the comments aren't working anymore)

Why does Brad have a flashing skull icon over his character the entire time? It's the only Generation Zero mystery I want solved.

@noblenerf: He got injured during a fight before we started recording and no matter how much he healed afterward the skull icon never went away.

I came here to get bummed out.

Does this have any ABBA in it?

nu rave is still alive

@thechris: Not usually, but they tend to do a cross-quicklook when a game is network/multiplayer dependent, which is the case for this one.

I once had the red stonewashed jeans Brad's character is wearing (but in a better cut). I'm glad that the trend of jeans in a variety of vibrant colors is finally making a comeback from the '80s.

ETA: JEANS UPDATE: In a Monkey's Paw twist, the "multicolor denim" trend has apparently been revived only for skinny jeans, a cut that looks good if you are, as advertised, skinny, but hot garbage if you are not. Once again, GREAT FASHION is dashed on the rocks of the utter stupidity of the women's garment industry.

Revive vials... revials? Also I thought these cross-coast QLs used to have better audio.

Thanks for sitting through this mess Alex and Brad.,

that's too bad.

well, hopefully it gets better!

Agreed that the game is incredibly buggy and hard to recommend, but one slight addendum to the video: there often are in-game objective indicators, you just have to go to the log tab and then manually track the quest (square on ps4). Some missions don’t have them, though, and like everything else sometimes they just glitch out.

Really enjoying that we've been getting more cross-coast Quick Looks!

You could kinda see some of the unpolished nature of the game in the trailers so I'm not that surprised.

This seems like the skeleton of a really cool game. If nothing else, the setting looks really pretty and hunting robots/exploring looks fun. But it needs a LOT more work.

I'll check up on this game every so often to see if they've made an actual game out of it, but until then, no thank you.

What a great idea sadly wasted.

Apart from the sound and maaaybe robot design, I don’t think Avalanche captured the idea and feel of Simon Stålenhag illustrations at all...

They’re visually striking, but also bleak. They’re tense, but also hopeful. They are about function and emotion. They’re about modern technology embdded into the very core of nature. The nature of our planet and the nature of human. Nothing in this game seems to capture that. It is just visually uninteresting, though competently made. Such a shame.

Sorry for pretentious comment, but I am really bummed out.

Alex and Brad are both so eloquent, they are a good quick look combo!

Today, for your viewing pleasure, the character of Nigel Tufnel will played by Alex Navarro.

I think this game was actually made by Expansive Worlds, who are the people who did thehunter games and are owned by Avalanche, because this game is on Expansive Worlds' Steam page and Avalanche's. If that's the case then it makes all the problems this game has make sense because thehunter games had some problems when they came out to.

I hope Avalanche are doing ok - I'd like to see this game get a chance at finishing development.

is this a Quick Look or an Unfinished?

@keyboard_cat: Maybe Atomic Heart will do it better?

@jonny_anonymous Wow, thanks for putting it on my radar. That game has a look to it!

I will definitely check it out when it comes out.

@thearcticsloth: How?

I think people overrated Avalanche. They've made one really good game (Renegade Ops), one game that wasn't amazing but it was just wonderfully dumb fun (Just Cause 2, which was vastly better than the previous one), and then a handful of competent games that were kind of tedious and didn't live up to their potential (everything else). I get hoping for the best, but it's strange that people seem to expect more just because it's Avalanche, despite the fact that most of their games feel half-baked, lacking the depth, variety and refinement that might make them really special.

@zinkn: I know, right? They may have sold me a copy of this based on these Swedish people finally making a game set in Sweden. I hate how devs worldwide feel like they need to set everything in the US all the time. Maybe I'll reward that regardless of the jank.

Yah this looks like it's going for that vibe but absolutely whiffing on it.

Atomic Heart looks kinda insane, hopefully the action holds up.

More cross-coast quick looks! Break those barriers!

(yeah, I know they're a pain to arrange, sigh)

This is going to sound needlessly reductive at first, but I promise I'm going somewhere with it: this feels like one of those asset flip Steam sub-shovelware games BUT with an art team. So when I say it FEELS that way, that's what I mean: it looks perfectly fine, but it seems to be utterly bereft of content. And broken as HELL, from the sound of it.

instead of looting wolves for special pelts, you're looting robot wolves for barcode keys (the worst security mechanism?).

@humanity: Yeah, action doesn't look that exciting in trailers they made so far. But let's hope!

This may seem like a dumb statement but I'm curious if it resonates with anyone else.

I don't like shooters. But I think this looks cool. I think maybe because I don't care about typical shooter stuff.

The idea of just creeping around this big empty, mysterious & oppressive world where sometimes you do indeed shoot guns at robots is really appealing. Sure I'd rather you had a sword or other such melee based robo-combat weapon but that strikes me as beside the point.

I guess I'm wondering if there's any weight to this being a bad first person shooter but a good(decent?) videogame where you shoot guns in the first person XD

Too bad about the issues with the game but I still will pick it up when it goes on sale because I am Swedish and from the 80's so just walking around 1989 Sweden sounds cool. There are so few games that takes place in Sweden. All I can think if is that one track in Project Gothamn racing 2 and Unravel.

Shame the rest of the game isn't as cool as the concept of Boston Labs robots taking over John Carpenter's Swedish countryside in the 80's, and guns that sound like Robocop peeling armor off said robots.

Not surprised but still disappointed in how this one turned out. I'll probably still check it out when it's on sale at some point.

As a general observation, Alex referring to an AR he doesn't recognise as an AK is equivalent to the joke about every Mom referring to any console as a Nintendo. When in doubt find a safe umbrella term.

@tevor_the_third: I think there's definitely something to be said for an "Incidental FPS" but I think this game would still fail even if you shifted the goalposts towards that option. Maybe we'll get that game but the one which come to mind are the STALKERs, and certain Fallout/Far Cry playstyles.

I imagine it hasn't aged too well - and honestly a run-based, Survival, FPS never resonated with me - but "Sir, You are being hunted" might be the closest result just comparing bullet-points.

I looked forward to this when I first heard about it. I think I'll wait and see if it is supported & updated as time goes by.

Is it always night in the game?

Seems like a neat concept, but wow does this look like some half baked garbage!