Recent reviews by Grifter_45

A prime example of a simple concept done exceedingly well. When my friend first showed me this game back in 2019, I thought it looked like a complete ripoff for the price. Oh how mistaken I was!
Amazing customization, every class is satisfying to use, many different mission types and biomes that each have advantages and disadvantages, and some of the most genuine developers I've ever seen! Great humor, plenty of ways to spend down-time, and a battle pass WITHOUT a premium option!
Nothing you pay for with real money gives you any advantage in the game whatsoever and the devs make it clear that it is purely to support them.

And the greatest selling point for me: all of this is accomplished in under 3gb (as of Nov 2021).

This is the kind of game I would recommend NOT getting on sale simply to further support the devs.
10/10

Gameplay is fun. Love the gunplay and melee hit detection. Quality is fine, though there aren't any reflections. A lot of hairstyles are just a flat color, so it's pretty distracting. Everyone's heads seem really small for some reason. My main problem is the resolution - for some reason the geniuses at Bethesda thought it would be a good idea to not put the game in 1920x1080, so when I try streaming everything is either really zoomed in or stretched beyond recognition.
If this were a $15 indie game it would be amazing, but this is unacceptable.

I love the gameplay mechanics and content, but the game is optimized horribly. Genuinely pathetic that a company as big as Rockstar can release a product that "runs out of memory", which is at this point a running joke in the community. Moonshine sell missions either don't load or don't give you a wagon to sell, griefers can just join on you through your Rockstar account and spawn 5 feet from you, and to top it all off the devs refuse to acknowledge the game's existence.

♥♥♥♥ you Rockstar.

THE GOOD.
- The game modes are extremely fun - my favorite has to be VIP.
- The maps are visually appealing and original.
- The visuals are reminiscent of early Halo games, where players stick out from the environment. This makes the map scenic but not distracting.
- The portals are an important mechanic that is not necessary to learn. It can give you an advantage if used properly, but the game is perfectly playable and maps easily navigable without dropping or using a single portal.
- Matches are always less than 10 minutes. If you're doing badly or playing with someone you suspect to be a cheater, you won't be stuck with them for long.

THE BAD.
- Some of the guns seem a bit unbalanced, the ones that come to mind being the Railgun, Plasma Rifle, and Rocket Launcher. The Battle Rifle is also a little under-powered in my opinion.
- People are complaining about console aim assist, but in my 5 hours of playing I don't feel like I have ever been at a disadvantage and am able to compete perfectly fine with everyone else. That being said, if console aim assist does exist, please make it balanced or remove it altogether.

SUMMARY.
Calling it "Halo with Portals" is a disservice to this game. It is its own game with its own personality, and I can feel the passion from the developers with every minute I play. Easily one of the best multiplayer games to come out within the last 5 years.
9/10 without aim assist, 7.5/10 with aim assist. TLDR get good.

Bought this game 5-6 years ago because a YouTuber played it. It sucked. Achievements were bugged, constant stuttering, and items would fall through the world at random. The only reason it says I played as long as I did is because I forgot to close the game when I went to sleep.

Five years later this is still my most regretful Steam purchase, even moreso than games that legitimately didn't launch. Good to see the devs continue to be incompetent and haven't even attempted to do anything new with this game. This game had a huge head start in the survival genre, but it still remains inferior to games that came out much later than it.

Played Halo 3 with some friends, beat it on Heroic in co-op. Game didn't register me beating the mission Halo. Also love spectating my corpse as I die.
If Halo 3 is the best the franchise has to offer, I am highly disappointed.

cancer

The developers have no idea how to manage their files. It takes upwards of an hour at times to allocate files after an update, and after the latest update (4.5.0) I had to wait 45 minutes to allocate 2.8 gb (it took about 5 minutes to download and the rest to move the files). Oh and after all of that the game crashed and told me to verify the integrity of my files, claiming it had been "modified". There is no reason this game should be 60 gb and still be so poorly optimized. Aside from this, the developers fail to listen to their fans, as their recent UI completely ruins the atmosphere they've built over the last 5 years. Why change a game 5 years into development?

The game is fun though, just the developers obviously don't know how to make a game.

Update 3/18/21:
The game is somehow even worse than before. Killers will be rank 13 against rank 1, 4, 7, and 8 survivors, 19 against rank 2, 7, 9, and 12 survivors, and 2 against rank 9, 11, 13, and 17 survivors. The developers should be ashamed of this garbage product.

Update 3/30/21:
Don't think the file integrity issues are something that was only prevalent back when this review was made - sure enough, my game crashed within a few minutes of launching with the game file integrity error. Glad to see the devs are keeping up with tradition!

Update 1/11/22
I came back to the game last month because I was in the mood to play it. Haven't seen the file integrity errors, and the devs claim they will try to trim down the file size and update times. If successful, that's great! However, the optimization for the game is still not too great - for lower-end cards, this game is near unplayable. Skill checks NEED 60fps to hit: I'm on a 1080 and I still barely get 55-60fps on most maps, so when playing survivor I resort to looking up at the sky to better hit skill checks because those extra 5 fps really do make a difference in this game. Also the matchmaking still sucks.
At this point this is more of a neutral review because I do enjoy this game, I do think the devs are taking some steps in the right direction, and I do think it's an experience unique to DBD. But there are still a bunch of issues that should be resolved before more characters or maps or features are added.

Was able to run this game at 30fps on medium with my GTX 1050 (which is weird considering the 1050 is slightly better than their recommended graphics). Had to put the game down to make space for other things, reinstalled it 6 months later. Just upgraded to a RX 570 and it can't even run high settings over 15fps. I figured - whatever - I'll play on medium. After killing the first Slime my frames are absolutely destroyed. Idk if this is some garbage compatibility or if an update screwed with the performance but this is pathetic.

It's kinda expensive for the amount of content you get, but the gameplay itself is fun. Definitely recommend playing with friends.