This has to be one of my favourite games and has gone through many improvements since its release on 13 December 2013. Once you start the game you will find yourself spawning on a huge map with a few items and some instructions to help you get started. There are tons of buildings to explore in a fully destructible map right down to bedrock (unless it’s protected by a player claim block as some servers don’t allow base raiding)
Horde Night is just as bad as it sounds and comes every seven days, so be prepared to run or fight, as zombies will know where you are and try to kill you until the night is over, but you will get a lot of loot if you survive and kill them. They grow stronger and harder depending on how many days have passed on the server or your single player save, but you can choose the settings and change them into something that you can enjoy playing.
The menu and options are very easy to use. For example, you can choose for the enemy to always walk or run, or be very strong or weak, or even how long it takes for you to start to get hungry and thirsty. You can change the settings to match the survival experience you want. The building system is unique with 100s of things, so you should have no problem building the type of base you want- even one with turrets. Be careful when building, as structural integrity is calculated, which means if you build too much or the building does not have enough support, it will start to collapse.
There are a couple of traders on the map you can get missions from or just buy and sell items to, but make sure you keep their bases alive as they will not respawn if they die. One feature I like about this game is that you can break buildings, cut up bodies, or recycle items to get the materials you are looking for. If you don’t like to play alone, you can always make some allies and party up with players you can trust, but if you stay in a group on horde night, it means a lot more zombies will come so be careful.
Performance wise this game has random fps drops around cities and on modded servers. Do not make a lot of torches or burning barrels, as they cause a huge fps drop when too many are placed around your base. For the best experience, find a group of players to team up with you, as it will be a lot easier to survive and find everything you need to build the perfect defence for horde night. Most players have more than one base for travelling as the map can be so big that it will take you a full game day to get from one base to the other, but having more than one base will be worth it.
When making a horde base, you can use many different traps to suit just about any situation. My favourite is a blade trap at the bottom of a big pit, but everyone has their own way of doing things. If you or a friend find something interesting, you can make a marker on your map and save it. It also gives you a choice if you want to share the marker with your allies or everyone on the server.
There are 5 different biomes on the map- each with different resources and hazards. The desert biome will have yellow grass, small dead bushes, Yucca plants, and Aloe Vera. It’s also common to be attacked by vultures. The forest biome would be the best place to start, as it is the easiest area to make a base and find plenty of cotton and goldenrod flowers. The wasteland biome is the hardest area, as there are no plants, randomly placed landmines, and plenty of stronger zombies. The snowy forest biome will be hard to start in as the cold drains your food, but you will always have water from melting the snow. The burnt forest biome will have burn victim zombies and more bears, so make sure you have a weapon. One of the things I love about this game is that you can find all sorts of old weapon and food factories and many more buildings with hidden passages or items all over the place- even bunkers under the houses which are perfect to start with if you are lucky to find one.
Pros
-fully destructible map
-many buildings and places to explore
-zombies start easy and get harder over time
-can cause buildings to collapse
-zombie kills have a chance to drop loot bags
Cons
-random fps drops
-sometimes items fall through the map including the bag you drop when you die
-sometimes zombies lag badly when they walk through your doors
-no story or ending
-can see under the map with a bug I rate it 7/10
This is one survival game you should try for yourself.
