9.5/10 "Actual best zombie survival sandbox simulation hidden behind a clunky UI. (Crazy lore unlocks below!)"

Project Zomboid is one of those titles that will remain in Early Access forever. But it is that way for a reason... It is one of the oldest EA titles (alongside Minecraft, which has since graduated from EA) to still be in development today, started by four people and a dream.

PZ is known for its authentic sandbox experience. If you play with default settings, electricity and water will eventually shut off. Loot across the vast map will run out. To get to the endgame, you must plan for ALL eventualities by setting up rain barrels, farms, and discover renewable resources/methods to sustain yourself... while dealing with the growing zombie threat. NPCs aren't in yet, but vehicles have been delivered and have completely changed the game. I expect NPCs to also make a similar lasting impact (or maybe they end up becoming convenient loot boxes, who knows).

PZ allows you to fully customize your experience. You can set zombies as traditional shamblers, fast movers, etc... Loot can be set to replenish over time. There's A LOT of settings to choose from if you're into that kind of thing. There's even an AI director to keep the pacing just right. No matter what kind of emergent gameplay or roleplaying experience you want to have, PZ will make it possible for you.

PZ has great modding support and a greater modding community, extending the game in every direction. Indie Stone also incorporates some of them into the base game, which is very pragmatic because of the sheer scope it's trying to achieve. Some modders even get hired, which is what Valve does. A powerful move when used correctly. That's not to say that everything is perfect, because mods can just as quickly fall apart when the game inevitably changes.

The biggest drawback is the clunky UI, as the learning curve is frustrating especially when you're being chased by zombies with permadeath enabled. This issue cannot be solved until there is a major overhaul along with good keybindings, but this won't be easy because of the simulation aspect AND there is no point until the game is feature complete. You can play around the bad UI to some extent by re-organizing your inventory and using other tricks to get by... But all of it ALWAYS goes out the window once you're being chased with permadeath on.

Now, let's talk about the troubled development of PZ... Or rather, how Indie Stone has pulled through some of the most difficult setbacks in the indie business. Their sheer resilience cannot be overstated because Indie Stone is not some AAA studio and never has been. It's four ordinary humans starting out with barely any money and only passion.

Before PZ was first released as a tech demo on June 2011 under Patch 0.1.4c, Paypal limited their account permanently, stopping withdrawals for 180 days to protect against chargebacks (otherwise Paypal was liable for refunds). So Indie Stone tried Google Checkout, but Google became suspicious of them selling "donations". There was no "pay what you want" option on Google Checkout at the time, so Indie Stone had used a list of pre-order options where you could also add £5, £10, and £15 donations alongside the base game. This might not sound like a big deal, but Indie Stone had all of their development funds (hereafter referred to as "war chest") tied up in an uncertain state, held hostage by Google AND Paypal. Having most of their war chest (and rent money) locked up in an UNCERTAIN state made PZ's future VERY uncertain. Google also waited a month into the pre-orders before doing this, and there were zero guarantees that Indie Stone would ever see those funds again. Google was obviously contacted (a Herculean feat as there wasn't any reliable way to get a hold of them because they were actively avoiding getting into end-user support), but only gave this vague reply: "We advise buyers to contact sellers directly to resolve any order-related issues." Can you see how screwed Indie Stone was now? It was insane, and their forums were on fire. The situation was solved via legal loopholes, but at the time, it could have been the end of PZ.

Next, PZ was leaked and copies started spreading as the game received attention. Not a bad thing, right? But pirates created an auto-updating version using Indie Stone's cloud-based servers and it always re-downloaded the latest version even if you had it. A massive hole was now burning through their war chest as Indie Stone needed to pay for bandwidth used by each individual download, and end-user pirates were spamming it to check for updates. Indie Stone is the gigachad archetype recommending users to try out their game via piracy before buying it, and until it became an actual roadblock to delivering their product, they had no issues turning a blind eye to it. This was solved swiftly by going full manual and eventually selling PZ through Steam and GOG. Now, you may be thinking... So... What's the problem? There was no such thing as Early Access titles on Steam in 2011, because the Greenlight initiative started in 2012! Any of you guys remember that!? So until then, they had to "deal with it", slowing sales and growth. In 2011, games selling in the EA state wasn't common yet because there weren't any reliable platforms to distribute them.

On October 15, 2011, they experienced a devastating break-in. Chris Simpson and Andy Hodgetts had moved into a new apartment and had personal possessions and their laptops, containing six weeks of code, stolen. This almost broke them AND the player base because the current AND next update no longer existed. What about backups? As I understand it, their ISP (Virgin) hadn't set anything up yet, so they were using mobile Internet to get online for now, which makes regular online backups not feasible. They backed up data across all of their PCs, which is the next best thing. Imagine being a team of four who had finally climbed various hurdles towards success and then getting all of your legs taken out instantly. Again, they're ordinary people like you and I, not some AAA studio. It was their "Great Depression", and sentiments were at an all-time low across the board because it would greatly extend development times while online comments humiliated them.

Despite all of this, and the constant negative feedback, Indie Stone never gave up. It's now 2024, and they're still going strong. Haters often don't realize how small the team was, or they're used to the fast "asset flips" Unreal Engine is capable of. But this is all indie, and the main ingredient is love, and in its current state, I'm ready to write the review while giving you some crazy lore unlocks in the process.

I wouldn't say I'm a PZ loremaster... I'm just a degen gamer who bought it back in Feb 2014. Before then, I pirated this game to try it. I was one of the end-user pirates spamming the update button. I've been there when multiplayer and vehicles were just a promise... So I get it if you don't believe in the game. But I do, and I seriously think this is the best zombie survival sandbox simulation on the market because I was there when it was a mere public tech demo. I've gifted several copies to my friends.

Indie Stone has the special type of resilience that will get them through anything. Their process is slow, but the result is good despite the sheer epic scope they're trying to deliver. Since then, there have been games like DayZ, but PZ is the only one that offers the most authentic zombie survival sandbox simulation experience.

You can watch their presentation on their woes, back when they were still a team of four and not the thirty (or so) today: https://youtu.be/HYgPI0qkdU4 (search: zomboid rezzed how not to make a game)

Highlights:
@ 16:16 - getting around Google Checkout
@ 22:50 - getting burgled

Thanks for reading, this was a long one (but not as long as their development time, amirite?).

11/10 "#1 ARPG of all-time even with it's insane barriers to entry. Hear me out..."

Path of Exile has come a long way since its humble beginnings when the game was actually regarded by many to be bad (including myself). It is now the evening before patch 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur goes live, and I believe the game has reached the point where it can be considered to be the greatest ARPG of all-time. I have a heavy ARPG background especially steeped in the roots of the original D1 & D2 (including when newer rune words such as Last Wish & Exile were meta).

Obviously, the biggest con and barrier to entry for new players is the sheer complexity of the game. It is especially punishing for new players who refuse to look at any guides or play in the trade leagues. There are many mechanics to take advantage of, but without knowledge, the hurdles encountered are simply too numerous to have a smooth experience. In particular, meta knowledge such as knowing what to expect is the single most valuable resource and will cause new players to feel like they wasted their time investing into something that will ultimately fail due to that knowledge gap.

But at the same time, that same complexity is not a con, but the biggest pro for players willing to do their research or to take their losses and move on. Every problem has not just one or two, but an entire library of solutions whether it's through gear, passive tree, skill gems, support gems, unique items, ascendancies, flasks, combos... It is rare for an ARPG to be this open-ended in how you can approach this, and PoE is the best at engaging these types of players who enjoy using critical-thinking skills and solving problems.

In this way, the biggest cons to PoE turn into the biggest pros, and due to how players gain knowledge as they continue to play, it is inevitable that players will be rewarded for their efforts.

It is completely true that players with 1000 hours still feel like they don't know anything compared to those with 2000, and the same goes for 2000 versus 3000. I'm at 6300+, and I know those at 7000 know more than I do. The more hours you have, the more you'll know how to take advantage of even the most obscure mechanic to solve a problem or optimize your next playthrough. Therefore, it is not really possible to ever attain mastery in this game. As your hours increase, your knowledge of the fundamentals becomes solid. After that, you get better at optimizing... endlessly. Every time you get better, you spend less currency while saving time and effort. No other game rewards your time and effort like PoE does.

In it's current iteration, the power fantasy attainable is INSANE. New players will never understand this, because they will be turned away from the effort required to reach this level of mastery. But those who continue to grind it out will be rewarded with the most powerful ARPG characters ever to exist in gaming history. The D2 Hammerdin is an obvious all-rounder who made a big impact in D2's meta back in the day, but the power fantasy that is possible in PoE is simply on an exquisite level especially because of the complexity of the challenges presented by the game versus the complexity you can utilize to customize your character. Conner Converse's Mjolner Archmage is an example of a build that plays exactly like a D2 Hammerdin while effortlessly deleting everything in seconds. It may not sound like much, but the scaling in terms of the max possible monster HP cap and damage cap between D2 and PoE is completely different. Recently, TurdtwisterX (aka SH**STAIN_STEVE_RETURNS) has completed Delve and hit the cap of 65535 using Conner's Manaforged Arrows setup (nerfed to the ground now, as it was going to be)! But Conner already has a new Molten Strike of the Zenith prepared and TurdtwisterX acknowledged he will be using it next league! To do Delve, characters need to be capable of soaking incoming damage from HP capped mobs who will one-shot you while being able to output hundreds of millions of DPS to chunk through the HP capped mobs fast enough. The power fantasy is absolutely insane, and no other game comes close whether you are going full minions... a clown melee build... meme builds... Whatever you want to build, you can do it.

And for casuals, there is so much endgame content to keep you occupied basically forever, between mapping, new AND old league mechanics, eldritch bosses, ubers, f**cking tower defense!?... etc... It never ends, and so more often than not, players quit the game after they've achieved whatever goal they set out to do for themselves.

So let's talk about the actual biggest con. Most people would consider the complexity to be the biggest, but this is absolutely not the case as I have shown above. The real biggest con is the inventory management. There are simply way too many different types of currency and fragments you need to collect, store, and manage. The game is technically free to play, but there is no doubt that a F2P player cannot survive the inventory management with just their initial 4 stash tabs. Now PoE does offer premium tabs and they do go on sale often, but remember how I talked about that meta knowledge gap? Yeah... You also need it to spend appropriately for your level of mastery of the game. By using YouTube tutorials, you can usually get by, but in the end, it is your own playstyle that ultimately dictates whether you wasted money or not.

But just like how the complexity turns into a pro, the tabs here do support the game and turn into a big pro because it is shared across PoE 2! I don't know what GGG is smoking, but give me some of that... These guys know how to convert cons into pros, and it's fu**ing awesome.

This is why PoE is the #1 greatest ARPG of all-time, surpassing its legendary ancestors. GGG is one of the most passionate and ethical developers in this space, and I am proud to have supported them with a gigachad $500 supporter package many years ago. I didn't even get any additional loot such as the $500 packages nowadays, but the continued polishing and ethical maintenance of this gem is the most important reward I could ask for.