For several months now, influencers have been telling us about the incredible intentions of the Madfinger Games studio for their extraction shooter Gray Zone Warfare. Stunning visuals, tactical and realistic cooperative gameplay, innovative game mechanics, a huge area to navigate, populated by hundreds of AI and 48 players… The pinnacle of communication was reached during the early access release, with a trailer compiling all the exaggerated sentences of dozens of sandwich men, as excited as ever by a week of playtest reserved for them. But despite everything, a few honest people seemed rather convinced that as it stood, it was not that incredible, and above all, that it still required a lot of work. Five days later, the game was released on Steam, with a disastrous rating – much improved since. But was it for the right reasons?
Gender : Extraction-shooter PvPvE | Developer: Madfinger Games | Editor: Madfinger Games | Platform : Steam | Price : of 34.99 € to €99.99 | Recommended configuration: Core i7-9700K / Ryzen™ 5 3600X, 32 GB RAM, NVIDIA® RTX 3070 Ti / Radeon RX 6800 | LANGUAGES : English | Release date : 04/30/2024 | Lifetime : dozens of hours
Preview carried out with a Standard version purchased on Steam
Madfingers Games, questionable practices
The Madfinger Games studio probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but it is nevertheless a veteran of the video game industry. The subtlety is that they are experts in mobile games, and that Gray Zone Warfare is their first PC game. This is perhaps why we end up with monetization bordering on dishonesty. Indeed, the standard version is priced at €35, but versions of up to €65 additional are offered only in the form of non-refundable DLC. They make it possible to improve the quality of life: more space in inventory, larger secure container, more equipment to start with, etc. Certainly, it is no different from a Escape From Tarkovand the developers have confirmed that we can improve this in-game, but it’s always disappointing to see this kind of practice.
We take helicopter rides
But let’s dive straight into the heart of the matter: the game. To begin, you will be asked to choose from three factions, which will determine who you will be allowed to play as a team with or not. It is possible to change it, but it will be at the cost of resetting the account, so don’t be mistaken. No worries, apart from this constraint, the selection of one rather than the other is as important as dodgeball: everyone will have the same equipment, the same sellers and the same quests. The only difference will come from the geographical location. As in any extraction shooter, you will have to equip yourself before going on a raid, by choosing your weapons, which can be modified as desired.Escape From Tarkov. The particularity here comes from the fact that it is a huge map, and that you can go on a mission either on foot (but it will be long and boring) or using a helicopter taxi. The latter can take you to very specific points, as long as you have unlocked them. And this is undoubtedly the most successful and impressive aspect of the game. There is no loading, and it gives a breathtaking view of the forests and rice fields of the fictional region of Lamangvery inspired by Laos.
We wade through the mud
Once on the ground, we realize that the developers wanted to make their game tactical. The movements are closer to a Escape From Tarkovor even a Weapon 3than a Call Of Duty. And if certain animations are laughable for the moment – especially for the race – those for handling weapons are very well done. Unfortunately, the feeling is not yet there. It’s pretty slick, and the sound design is pretty bad. On the other hand, while Madfinger Games had talked at length about the penetration of ammunition depending on the materials, the bots sometimes take around ten 7.62 bullets without flinching, before giving you a headshot from space. It will be necessary to check whether this type of behavior declines with the improvement in server performance, which can dramatically impact the experience of combat. But as it stands, it looks like the balancing was done by a cocaine-addicted monkey.
Opportunism or happy coincidence?
While the most conspiratorialists claim that Madfinger Games jumped on the controversy surrounding Tarkov to release their early access in a hurry, the truth is much more banal: after numerous postponements, the game was well planned to arrive on this date, and they have had a chance to cuckold.
Let’s not beat around the bush: AI sucks. The enemies are stupid as brooms. They stare at the walls, or stand like acorns in the middle of the road, while gunshots ring out 100 meters away. And it’s not better when they are engaged, since they have no concept of cover or evasion. They will just quietly advance towards you one by one to take their headshot. The risk comes from the fact that they can sometimes see you through the bushes, unlike you, so you will have to be wary when you hear them talking. Unfortunately, it seems to us that this point, although major, is not going to be an easy task for the developers. Especially since they are not very experienced in the development of PC titles, which require, a priori, skills that are very different from those in mobile games. Indeed, the ambition to bring hundreds of AIs to life and manage ballistics for 48 players seems difficult to achieve at first glance. That’s a lot to calculate on the server side, which is already sometimes struggling at the moment. We think very hard about Weapon 3, which can have the same problems on custom missions, with much fewer bots, and often fewer players. This is why we are not very optimistic, despite the good will of the studio. This is probably also why the world, although very detailed, is desperately empty and lifeless. Aside from the armed militias posted here and there near their building, no civilian, vehicle, or even patrol comes to break the monotony.
But we’re a little bored
The innovative care system so praised in previous announcements did not seem so exceptional to me. After a few hours, you will understand that you need to use a certain type of treatment for a particular type of injury, and that if you are bleeding, it is better to apply a tourniquet before bandaging, and an IV afterwards. If you have already played Weapon 3 with a few mods, you won’t be disoriented.
For the moment, the formula proposed by Madfinger Games struggles to convince beyond a few hours, especially in single player. Indeed, the quests are not very interesting and do not particularly make you want to follow them. You will tell me that those of Tarkov are just as lame, and I would totally agree. However, with its Russian competitor, the mission is a pretext, since the clashes are visceral and each enemy killed causes great satisfaction. And coming out of a raid alive is a real victory. So many emotions and feelings almost completely absent from Gray Zone Warfare, for several reasons. On the one hand, because of a very bland feeling, but above all, because of the lack of stakes. In fact, our corpse remains for an hour at the place of death, and it is generally possible to return there in a few minutes, even more easily if we play in a group. For the fights against the AI, this just wastes a little time to achieve the objective that we had set for ourselves. On the PvP side – when you choose to join a server that allows it – this leads to somewhat absurd positional wars, in which you can see a waltz of helicopters bringing back the belligerents one by one, until ‘one of the teams is fed up. In addition, there is no real point in killing other players, since they have the same equipment as you, and for the moment, the weapons are not very varied.
Intrinsically, the absence of tension is not a bad thing, since it offers another vision of extraction shooter. A more accessible proposition than its most obvious competitor. Here, there is no need to invest several hours every day to hope to go out with equipment that will make us happy at the end of the week. And above all, there is practically no fear of losing your stuff.
Take advantage of the heating function of your graphics card
If there’s one subject that’s easy to promote, it’s appearance. And it must be said that what displays Gray Zone Warfare is pretty incredible. The world is very detailed, and filled with very fine elements. As we said at the beginning, it’s very impressive in a helicopter. Unfortunately, once on the ground, we realize that a little something is missing. It’s too clean, too academic, and it lacks soul. Maybe it’s just a matter of working on the light or some sort of filter, but for the moment, I had a hard time finding the game very beautiful. On the technical side, it’s quite complicated. For example, with an AMD 7800x3d, 32 GB of RAM and an RTX 4090, in 4k, everything at max, DLSS quality and frame generation, I oscillated between 90 and 130 FPS. As opposed to my laptop PC equipped with an I5 13500H, 16 GB of RAM and a 4060, which could only maintain 60 FPS stable in 1080p thanks to the frame gen, despite having set everything to low and activated the DLSS in performance mode. It was quite painful to watch, and inevitably more difficult to play, since the enemies were even harder to locate. Additionally, although it seems much better in recent days, the servers seem to hiccup at times, causing incessant rollbacks and helicopter jumps, particularly conducive to getting your spaghetti bolognese back to your keyboard. However, it’s difficult to blame poor graphics optimization or network issues for a title in early access, especially in the first weeks.
Released way too soon
Gray Zone Warfare was released in early access way too soon. Some may have been blinded by the excess of technique to display a map teeming with details, and very impressive helicopter panoramas. But when you dig a little deeper, there’s not much left: the artistic direction is ultimately quite flat, it’s empty, lifeless, the quests are boring, there’s a big lack of challenge whether in PvE or in PvP, and above all, the AI is catastrophic. And we are not very optimistic about its improvement, given the calculations to be done on the server side. On the other hand, the game offers much more casual gameplay than its main competitor, despite its hardcore tactical appearance. This may appeal to those who don’t have three hours a day to devote to a video game, especially if they have two or three friends to do a few missions. Finally, although it is difficult to criticize a game in early access for its lack of optimization, we must still point out that we are here in the presence of the holder of the trophy slideshow & pixel mush. But that remains, in our opinion, the least of its concerns, and we really can’t advise it for the moment, even less when we see the non-refundable “DLC” for the versions with more space in the inventory…
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