Word of mouth, YouTube Let's Play videos, and various online PC gaming magazines and blogs all pointed to Unturned one day. Open-world survival games seemed like flavor of last month, notorious for bugs and horrid communities. I wasn't all that interested. That is, until I found out that the game had been developed by one seventeen year old, Nelson Sexton.
The first thing I noticed about Unturned was the unmistakable and infamous voxel graphics. However, despite a seemingly low production value, I was surprised at how well the shadows and water effects looked in the screenshots. When Ben got on the Unturned train and Mark fired up a server, I was mostly expecting another Minecraft knock-off experience like Castle Miner Z.
no land mines here
Unturned offers what you'd expect out of an open-world zombie themed survival game these days: getting hungry, getting thirsty, getting diseased, scavenging supplies, shooting zombies, shooting people, and of course, crafting. The game world is based off Prince Edward Island and was a pleasure exploring. My two friends and I grabbed some starting supplies in a nearby town, beat down some zombies, found some clothes so we weren't naked, and then jacked a car to start our tour of the beautiful island. Despite some horrendous game options menu designs and inventory interface clunkiness, I had a fun time.
There were some tense moments when zombies got to our party unexpectedly or when supplies ran low, but it didn't take long for the three of us to be swimming in food, drink, and bullets. Supplies respawn over time, so there wasn't any shortage once you secure a car and some fuel early on. Our adventures ended when Mark stepped on a land mine, blowing our chunks to the corners of the map, where we respawned.
hordes aren't that scary
Now, Ben, Mark, and I were friendos: we shared supplies, looked out for each other, and exploded together. This kind of private server experience leaves out a key component in a game like Unturned or DayZ, Rust, and many other open-world, multiplayer survival games: interactions between separate parties of players. The zombies themselves aren't a big threat; you can outrun most of them and they don't come in fearful hordes. I can imagine the biggest threat being other people. While my friends and I were carelessly entering buildings and taking whatever loot we could find, a truly multiplayer experience might prove to be more suspenseful, never knowing when you might come across a hostile party.
Reading several of the reviews on Unturned featured on Steam, many negative reviews point to the community as being the biggest detractor. You can just imagine what kind of demographic a Minecraft-esque zombie survival game will attract. We didn't get to witness the complex community interactions that are core in multiplayer survival games. We never got robbed, we never got randomly killed, and we never had to deal with other people, period. I can only imagine that without a supportive community, Unturned would become a frustrating experience.
For a free-to-play game, I had a fun time playing Unturned for a couple hours with my friends. The game is being updated with new content and patches. If you have an afternoon to kill and some friends to not kill (or maybe you do, in game, with a land mine), Unturned is a fun fix. I probably wouldn't venture into public servers though- you've been warned.
