Interesting map generation gimmick, rest of the game is decidedly mediocre.

The game is more or less unplayable long term due to non renewable resource constraints. Once you have used up what is on the map that's it. There is no way to acquire bricks or metal beyond that point.

The gameplay does not facilitate most regions of the planet for this reason. There are a few cherry picked areas, with more present on the workshop. Sprawling metropolitan maps often come at a cost of performance, while regional areas you may not play at all. For instance I tried my home town and some neighbor towns all of which may not be played due to not having enough buildings. It should be feasible to play on a map with nothing at all, but the mechanics do not support this.


Unfortunately the accuracy of the generated maps is relatively poor, this is a case of garbage in - garbage out with the open street map data. There is no elevation, very little building variety, etc. Water is present but does not appear to serve any purpose at all as the zombies can simply swim.

Gameplay is otherwise very time gated (artificially slow), interspersed with annoying radio transmission events that I turned off after the first playthrough.
Unfortunately you have to manually accept every migrant wave, through the radio interface, some of which have different dialogue trees which is just tedious.

It should be noted that the game can be sped up vastly, enable cheats in the console and set the timescale to 100x. Once you stop idly waiting for events to transpire the lack of depth becomes very apparent.

Mechanically the game does a poor job of supporting the maps, the gameplay feels like an afterthought to the map generation itself. Squad management is a chore, you have to direct them manually to resupply ammo and heal. The equipment variety is incredibly basic and the combat is relatively one dimensional. Managing multiple squads is technically possible but poor due to strange UI choices. Keeping your squads alive is optional as the population increases rapidly and is very disposable. Build a big warehouse and squad HQ early, scavenge the entire map in one go. Your squads are now just mobile towers that you have to micromanage to heal and resupply.

Constructing and converting buildings is also tedious, there is a hotkey for deconstruction (u), but everything else is a manual operation for each construction. Walls and farms are the exception to this as they can be dragged for multiple instances.

Construction lacks depth and nuance, building your own structures is locked behind a tech tree and the resource investment is substantial. Research should present incremental improvements or alterations to your existing capabilities, instead it is just an artifical time gate to drip feed features that should be enabled from the start. Science requires no resources or thought other than housing and feeding scientists.

Population requirements and happiness is also entirely one dimensional. You either have enough houses, food, daycare, etc or you do not. Electricity, plumbing and other amenities are not present.

Defence is also really basic, walls and towers do not really serve a purpose beyond consuming your resources through repairs. Towers used to consume ammunition but that was removed at some point. Towers can use bows which is missing from squads. Just stack squads in perimeter buildings and call it a day.
You can't use walls to funnel hordes into a killzone for instance, they will just attack the nearest structure from what I can tell.

This is an interesting prototype that generates game maps from real world data, but the execution of the game part is insubstantial and bare bones. A lot of the features make no sense, are annoying or otherwise do not contribute to the experience in a meaningful way. They appear to be mandated for the sake of feature parity with other RTS zombie games.

Interesting map generation gimmick, rest of the game is decidedly mediocre. The game is more or less unplayable long term due to non renewable resource constraints. Once you have used up what is on the map that's it. There is no way to acquire bricks or metal beyond that point. The gameplay does not facilitate most regions of the planet for this reason. There are a few cherry picked areas, with more present on the workshop. Sprawling metropolitan maps often come at a cost of performance, while regional areas you may not play at all. For instance I tried my home town and some neighbor towns all of which may not be played due to not having enough buildings. It should be feasible to play on a map with nothing at all, but the mechanics do not support this. Unfortunately the accuracy of the generated maps is relatively poor, this is a case of garbage in - garbage out with the open street map data. There is no elevation, very little building variety, etc. Water is present but does not appear to serve any purpose at all as the zombies can simply swim. Gameplay is otherwise very time gated (artificially slow), interspersed with annoying radio transmission events that I turned off after the first playthrough. Unfortunately you have to manually accept every migrant wave, through the radio interface, some of which have different dialogue trees which is just tedious. It should be noted that the game can be sped up vastly, enable cheats in the console and set the timescale to 100x. Once you stop idly waiting for events to transpire the lack of depth becomes very apparent. Mechanically the game does a poor job of supporting the maps, the gameplay feels like an afterthought to the map generation itself. Squad management is a chore, you have to direct them manually to resupply ammo and heal. The equipment variety is incredibly basic and the combat is relatively one dimensional. Managing multiple squads is technically possible but poor due to strange UI choices. Keeping your squads alive is optional as the population increases rapidly and is very disposable. Build a big warehouse and squad HQ early, scavenge the entire map in one go. Your squads are now just mobile towers that you have to micromanage to heal and resupply. Constructing and converting buildings is also tedious, there is a hotkey for deconstruction (u), but everything else is a manual operation for each construction. Walls and farms are the exception to this as they can be dragged for multiple instances. Construction lacks depth and nuance, building your own structures is locked behind a tech tree and the resource investment is substantial. Research should present incremental improvements or alterations to your existing capabilities, instead it is just an artifical time gate to drip feed features that should be enabled from the start. Science requires no resources or thought other than housing and feeding scientists. Population requirements and happiness is also entirely one dimensional. You either have enough houses, food, daycare, etc or you do not. Electricity, plumbing and other amenities are not present. Defence is also really basic, walls and towers do not really serve a purpose beyond consuming your resources through repairs. Towers used to consume ammunition but that was removed at some point. Towers can use bows which is missing from squads. Just stack squads in perimeter buildings and call it a day. You can't use walls to funnel hordes into a killzone for instance, they will just attack the nearest structure from what I can tell. This is an interesting prototype that generates game maps from real world data, but the execution of the game part is insubstantial and bare bones. A lot of the features make no sense, are annoying or otherwise do not contribute to the experience in a meaningful way. They appear to be mandated for the sake of feature parity with other RTS zombie games.