Hello everyone, it’s been just over a month since launch and we’d like to do a quick recap as well as update you regarding our focus for the near-future.
In mid-April we pushed out a patch with the aim of bug-fixing as many things as we could in the short period following our Launch. At the same time, we made some tweaks to machine behavior and adjusted the drop rates for the Adrenaline Shot with the intent to make the game more challenging - which is closer to our originally planned design. Unfortunately, we tweaked the Adrenaline Shot a bit too much, resulting in people having trouble finding them. While we were able to make an update on PC already, console players will have this issue resolved next week. We’ll continue to monitor your feedback so that we can try to strike a good balance.
That said, throughout this time we’ve gotten loads of feedback from all of you and we’ve been doing our best to compile a list of the common positive trends, alongside areas where we need to improve. From a positive perspective, many of you are loving the immersiveness of the world - and that’s something we’re both happy to hear and already had planned to keep integrated into future updates. We love the world of Generation Zero and we want to keep adding to it so that you can continue to explore and learn more about the world.
When it comes to areas of improvement, we’re seeing 3 big trends emerge from the feedback:
- Missions aren’t working as expected
- The world doesn’t feel as full as it could
- The challenge the machines provide isn’t consistent across experiences
These 3 items will take up most of our immediate focus in the coming months. With a small team, it will take us time to address each fully, but we can make dedicated pushes in each area alongside continuous updates. But let’s dive deeper into each area and discuss how we’ll be addressing them.
Missions
We’ve heard loud and clear that Missions are having problems across the board. Whether it be unclear objectives, progress not being shared in Multiplayer, or worst-of-all, Missions being broken so they can’t be completed. As Missions are essential to the overall experience of Generation Zero, correcting the problems here is our primary focus. To accomplish this we want to make Missions easily understood from all aspects and, obviously, work correctly. What we need to do to improve the system will take some time, however, so we’ll update you when we have more details to share.
World
For us, we see the world of Generation Zero as almost its own character in our game. It’s meant to be something you interact with alongside being immersive. Right now the world is at its most immersive when you hit the pockets that we’ve laid out for you - although that doesn’t reach throughout as much of the game as you all are hoping for. To that end, we’ve begun work on filling out the world more. We’re starting with the opening island but will take in feedback as we look to expand beyond that area. Look out for some of these changes in our next upcoming Update sometime in May.
Machines
As the core avenue for combat, fighting the Machines needs to feel good. And so far we hear it does, for the most part. Sometimes the Machines are not so smart in their behavior and other times they’re clipping through walls and causing frustration. On top of that, some players don’t find the Machines challenging enough, while some find them too hard. Over time we’ll continue to make improvements so they live up to their deadly design intent. This area will see continuous improvement as we tweak the existing Machines to get them feeling just right for all types of players.
Right now these 3 items are our short-term focus. Beyond those, we have some things in the works that will touch on end-game replayability as well as another reason to play co-op. Additionally, we’ve heard many of you asking about vehicles and player storage so we’ve added those into our list of things to investigate sooner rather than later. But more on all of these will come once we get the major items out of the way so that the core experience feels solid.
As always, please keep the feedback coming - especially on what you think about the above. Thank you!
//The Generation Zero Team