Online game "Undawn"

Undawn is a conditionally free multiplayer survival simulator in the world after the zombie apocalypse. Such a description is unlikely to shake anyone's imagination. Have we seen many such simulators and games about the living dead? But in the advertisement of the project for a reason the famous actor Will Smith, who played the main role in the movie "I Am Legend", which is very similar in entourage to the work of the company Tencent. Survival here is not reduced to shooting, eating, sleeping or gathering supplies - the heroes even have to take a bath and wash clothes. And you don't have to worry about shooting, because the authors of PUBG Mobile had a hand in the development. In general, we are facing not the most banal MMO - let's tell you about its advantages and disadvantages.

From the very announcement there were rumors that Undawn will not be available in all regions of our planet. This is partly true - the version from the Steam store does not work for gamers from Russia. But if you download the client from the official site, you will not have any problems, and in addition you will get Russian localization. Moreover, no one is forced to register an account - you can simply leave your e-mail address, which will soon receive an identification number, valid for 15 minutes. With it you will start your war against zombies.

The adventure starts with character creation. The choice here is like in a real MMORPG: there are three races with two genders in each, and a lot of settings for the face. You can change eye color, hairstyle and basic features of your face, try on jewelry and accessories. However, you can't go too fast with body correction, but this is compensated by a wide range of outfits. Not all of them are available for free, but it's up to everyone to decide whether it's worth it.

The plot begins with your hero trying to enter the city on the bridge, but someone throws a Molotov cocktail into the car. The car catches fire, there is a crash, and from the shelters immediately crawl out of the robbers. They are not happy with their prey for long - soon the zombies run to the noise, and from that moment everyone acts on his own. The recent victim manages to escape by jumping on the hulks of abandoned cars. And further we have only one way - to the center of the city, where the survivors of the group "Ravens" fenced a protected zone to fight off the walking dead and villains from the human race.

Along the way you are taught the basics of stealth, as most enemies react to loud noises, and also shown how to fight in close combat with a machete and shoot with a shotgun. In the store at the gas station you collect the first supplies, and at the same time you learn that the character's health is not ironclad - if you are bitten by infected people, you need to look for a cure. Having coped with the first problems, you repair the motorcycle and rush towards the last stronghold of civilization in the style of zombie action movie Days Gone.

Undawn's graphics are immediately striking, reminiscent of the game's mobile roots. It really came out first on smartphones, and then on PC. But from the projects of this kind, this one stands out for its quality. There are quite decent textures, effects in the style of changing time of day and weather, as well as surprisingly pleasant shooting. It is more convenient to shoot zombies on sight, though there is also aiming through the fly - it will come in handy when you change your shotgun for a more accurate weapon. On the other hand, the porting costs in the form of large inscriptions in the interface and the need to constantly remove the cursor arrow by pressing Alt. It is necessary when working with inventory and crafts, but completely unnecessary in battle.

And you have to fight here often. After training in the single-player campaign, which consists of a chain of errands for the inhabitants of the peaceful village, you are sent to free sailing - and the game comes down to two aspects. On the one hand, you have to develop a shelter, where you get protection from zombies, and also organize rooms for your needs (just like Will Smith's character in "I Am Legend"). On the other hand, you can't do without going out for supplies and resources for pumping. And this almost always means a fight with enemies - either with rotten undead, or with alive but evil bandits. In addition, you have to move around the Undawn world with the help of transportation. You start with an ordinary motorcycle, and then you can ride among the ruins even on a Ferrari or a monster truck.

There is no open world in the usual sense here, of course. It would be surprising to find such a solution in a game that came to computers from mobile devices. The city and its suburbs are divided into separate locations, quick movement between them is designed in an original way - in the form of bus stops. All these territories differ both in the level of difficulty of the tasks available on them, and aesthetically - somewhere there is a solid forest and hills, and somewhere purely urban development. In addition, some of them have Raven outposts where you can rest between missions, replenish your ammunition, and pick up new missions. In the vicinity of one of these outposts you are given your first dwelling.

The sanctuary the hero reaches in the company of Sherry, a nurse from the Raven base, is just a grassy wasteland with a dilapidated shed in the middle and a tree house in the corner of the plot. It takes effort to turn such a neglected place into a fortress. Remove weeds and wooden junk, at the same time dismantling it into building materials, then repair the walls of the cabin and put a door in it. And next, pick points to place household items like workbench, closet, grill, bathroom, garden, vegetable garden and the like. While the main building is under construction, you can sleep and cook in the tree house, but this is obviously a temporary solution.

Throughout your adventures in the world of the game, your home remains an island of calm in the midst of the storm. Here you make and improve weapons, cook food and ammunition, replenish your character's strength and give free rein to the architect inside you, building and decorating your base as you please. Don't forget the banal needs, when the hero needs to eat, sleep, go to the toilet and wash clothes. Yes, even such trifles are provided for, and if you don't keep an eye on them, your survival will come to a screeching halt.

But when you go out of the gate, the action begins. Here zombie swarms roam, there the team of heroes under the control of other players runs to the next task, besides it is necessary to move to some point in search of something valuable. So with time you get attached to the shelter, you start to really care about it, as if you yourself live here, not just your character.

Undawn is not only a survival simulator, but also an RPG where you have a choice of lines in dialog and a progression system. It is organized in the manner of Tom Clancy's The Division. If you're not familiar with that project, we'll explain the gist of it. The hero does not turn into a bulletproof cyborg over time, but he still increases his combat rating - it is an indicator of attack and defense, allowing you to pass more difficult tests. And it is affected by items of equipment: weapons, jacket, hat, gloves, pants, boots and body armor. Any of these items has a certain level and properties like durability. So when you get a new item in battle, you simply put it on your fighter, replacing the old item.

Each of the items can be improved, and the matter is organized in such a way that you mostly pump the cell, where the thing is located, rather than the thing itself. For example, your hero has a machine gun. You can decorate it as you like, apply any colors and camouflages - these will be the properties of the weapon itself. But dodgers like a larger magazine, flashlight, additional grips, sight, silencer or flame arrester are attached to the slot with the weapon - and when you change the gun will automatically become available for the new barrel. You won't have to dig through the constructor and collect spare parts all over the map.

Skills are organized in the same way. These are not just spells or superpowers, as in games about elves and dragons, and quite specific items like mines and grenades, collected by found blueprints. Any item, from flashy armor to a cool car, of course, can be purchased for virtual currency, and to get it you need to perform the same tasks - at the end of each chapter or test the hero is waiting for a reward. And the quests are different: there are marks on the map, which have a certain level of complexity, time events, daily and plot tasks. By completing them, you pump up your character and at the same time get more opportunities. However, there are also quite ordinary skills like dexterity and bullet resistance, familiar to all gamers.

Daily challenges are organized so that newcomers develop much faster than those who have already spent a considerable amount of time in the game. They also bring irreplaceable resources. For example, fiberglass plates, which allow you to improve your weapons - and eventually raise your character's combat rating. But when it comes to gun upgrades, there are mechanics familiar from traditional MMORPGs, where every "sharpening" of an item carries an element of randomness. And so it is here: whether you raise the critical damage of your rifle or grind the whole construction, the result is always unpredictable.

Characters controlled by other players you meet almost immediately: they hang out at the base of "Ravens", go to outposts, wander around different locations. And from the first quests you start receiving invitations to join squads to hunt the next monster. But, despite the abundance of gamers, there are not many reasons for joint action in Undawn. The most common is participation in events on the map, when you need to join a squad to fulfill tasks. You can also go to the boss with friends, trade at the local market or chat with someone. However, there are no options with more complex relationships, when you develop your base with the whole team or storm your neighbors' possessions.

Ambitious users can challenge their rivals in the Arena, which is the name of special PvP areas in the game. Outside their borders, of course, all your opponents are under the control of artificial intelligence, and shooting at other people's characters has no effect. Any competition is reduced to sports measures - who will score more points in the table and who in the clan has a higher total combat rating. Needless to say, you expect much more from multiplayer in a game with such elaborate survival mechanics. But the developers from the Chinese company Tencent obviously have their own view on the development of the genre.

Undawn leaves a double impression. On the one hand, there are decent graphics for the game transferred from mobile devices, pleasant shooting with customization of weapons for any taste, survival mechanics are thought out not worse than in The Sims series, and there is also construction and entourage of war against zombies in urban conditions, as in The Last of Us. On the other hand, the story quests and multiplayer activities are not very diverse. So it's a matter of taste: if you like mining resources, shooting at the walking dead, cooing with an anime nurse in a tree house and organizing your base, the game will be to your liking.

Zarium. August 2023