Amazing game, the very hardest zombie game I've ever played. The replayability the mods give the game are inefable. It's a tough survival game and if you've just started you WILL die very often, and if you've played it for a while, you will STILL die quite a lot. There are many QoL mods that make all this process less frustrating, like saving your skills on a journal and making your next "incarnation" able to retrieve it hahaha.
The story is very subtle, being shown in the TV (that only works for some days after the "outbreak") and the radio, but it's very good. The ambience is in the early 90's, so not much tech as we see today and more bulky cars. You start off as you want to roleplay it. You create your character, you create your traits (sort of a backstory that defines the skills you begin the game with), then you start at a random house within the neighborhood you chose. Then you have to survive, there is no endgame, it is eternal. The more you progress, the easier it is to survive. You loot other houses and zombies, set up a base, fortifications and see how far you can survive. If you die, you can create another character or even a reincarnation of the first one if you want, and you can go back to where you died and fight your own zombie version to get your loot back. But all your skills, books read, xp you gathered, etc, are gone after you die. So you better watch out.
You can also choose every setting for your game, like how long has it been after the outbreak (affects spoiled food found, nature growth, etc), how bad are the zombies (like how long they remember seeing or hearing you, or if they follow you until they die, or if they have short term memories, if all of them run, or just some of them, or none of them, the ammount of zombies spawned per area, their toughness, their sight, their hearing), how much loot you can find and of which kind, how many trait points you begin the game with, how fast time moves, how much gas lasts, how durable are cars, how effective are generators, you can get it almost cheating and you can make it actually impossible for you to survive. So play around until you find that sweet spot where you have a significant ammount challenge and being able to play it for a less frutrating ammount of time. Playing with friends is great as well. But do get to modding and you will get a whole new world and experience. I suggest starting with vanilla with some "cheatty" options so you understand the feel of the game (it has a very simple tutorial but that doesn't even begin to cover the complexity of the game), and then move on to more challenging options (you can change the game's settings while you're at it, so you can even keep the save), and have fun <3

Amazing game, the very hardest zombie game I've ever played. The replayability the mods give the game are inefable. It's a tough survival game and if you've just started you WILL die very often, and if you've played it for a while, you will STILL die quite a lot. There are many QoL mods that make all this process less frustrating, like saving your skills on a journal and making your next "incarnation" able to retrieve it hahaha. The story is very subtle, being shown in the TV (that only works for some days after the "outbreak") and the radio, but it's very good. The ambience is in the early 90's, so not much tech as we see today and more bulky cars. You start off as you want to roleplay it. You create your character, you create your traits (sort of a backstory that defines the skills you begin the game with), then you start at a random house within the neighborhood you chose. Then you have to survive, there is no endgame, it is eternal. The more you progress, the easier it is to survive. You loot other houses and zombies, set up a base, fortifications and see how far you can survive. If you die, you can create another character or even a reincarnation of the first one if you want, and you can go back to where you died and fight your own zombie version to get your loot back. But all your skills, books read, xp you gathered, etc, are gone after you die. So you better watch out. You can also choose every setting for your game, like how long has it been after the outbreak (affects spoiled food found, nature growth, etc), how bad are the zombies (like how long they remember seeing or hearing you, or if they follow you until they die, or if they have short term memories, if all of them run, or just some of them, or none of them, the ammount of zombies spawned per area, their toughness, their sight, their hearing), how much loot you can find and of which kind, how many trait points you begin the game with, how fast time moves, how much gas lasts, how durable are cars, how effective are generators, you can get it almost cheating and you can make it actually impossible for you to survive. So play around until you find that sweet spot where you have a significant ammount challenge and being able to play it for a less frutrating ammount of time. Playing with friends is great as well. But do get to modding and you will get a whole new world and experience. I suggest starting with vanilla with some "cheatty" options so you understand the feel of the game (it has a very simple tutorial but that doesn't even begin to cover the complexity of the game), and then move on to more challenging options (you can change the game's settings while you're at it, so you can even keep the save), and have fun <3