Zelter is an early access zombie apocalypse survival game developed by G1 Playground, a Korean based developer and published by Super.com. Zelter feels familiar right away, with the pixelated art style reminiscent of other games such as Minecraft or Terraria. Zelter’s similarities to those games don’t end there, with the core gameplay loop feeling like another take on the survival crafting genre, with a few twists. Zelter, however, just doesn’t have enough on its bones yet to be worth the entry fee but there is definitely a case for a curious investor to try it out, with the caveat that most of the more interesting mechanics and gameplay locked away in development.
I played Zelter on an MSI GS63VR laptop, with a GTX1060 and an i7 5500 HQ. Even on aging hardware, Zelter ran well, with no noticeable drops or hiccups in performance during my time playing. The current options for fine tuning Zelter for your specific rig are relatively limited. There are currently only a few different settings that can be changed. The graphics has three options, High, Medium, and Low, with no other options to tweak anything else. Audio settings are also simplistic, but the settings are appropriate for a game of this type. The menu music is a bit loud by default so I turned that down right away. There are also different input options, allowing you to choose between a controller or the default mouse and keyboard on PC. I chose to stick with mouse and keyboard and used the default controls for this review, but there are options for players who want to finetune their experience.
Gameplay starts with customization, with a rather simple but functional character creator. There are options for gender, three different skin tones, and a variety of hairstyles that are shared between the two genders. The game then drops your character in the middle of an open world, with resources around and a few items in your bag. Controls are workable, although a bit awkward at first. The mouse controls the direction in which you are facing and the WASD keys controls the actual movement. Although this seems pretty straightforward, it can result in some janky and odd movement that can feel strange at first, but after a few minutes just moving around and trying to chop down trees, I was able to get used to it.
The gameplay loop is the tried and true survival crafting loop, where you harvest resources, craft items, fight enemies, rinse and repeat. The game doesn’t have any tutorials to show you where to go or what to do, instead trusting the player to figure it out on their own. This can be a bit frustrating at first, given that there are some small differences in the way Zelter handles its mechanics. For instance, crafting can be done from your bag, with a small icon on the bottom left with the button input telling you how to access the crafting menu. The standard fare items can be crafted: wooden planks, beds, tools, etc. Zelter also differs from a game like Minecraft in such that the player must be stationary when crafting.
Each item requires a certain amount of resources as well as several seconds of the player staying absolutely still in order to complete. These time limits are not overbearingly long but if you want to build more than just one axe or one set of arrows, it can leave you standing, exposed for time you could be using to chop down more trees or collect more stones. This makes Zelter feel like a stop and go game, when one minute I can be running away from zombies or collecting resources and the other minute checking my phone while I wait for all my sticks to turn into wood planks. Even the crafting bench and furnace require the player’s every attention, requiring me to stay and watch the crafting bench make my items when I could be doing something else. The crafting doesn’t just end there though. One of Zelter’s main selling points are the NPCs that you can recruit to join you and these NPCs can grant you access to better items. The NPCs are also essential to another of the game’s core gameplay loops: the combat.
The other aspect of the gameplay loop, the fighting enemies, is actually one of my favorite things about this game. Weapons feel nice and weighty despite being a top down game and the enemies are hard and intimidating enough where each encounter doesn’t feel like a cakewalk. The panic I get when I miss my crossbow or pistol shot and have to scramble to reload as the zombie races across my screen had me actively seeking out enemies to fight, with the added reward that I could find a new NPC to add to my growing community. One of the strengths of recruiting these NPCs are the new combat items they allow you to craft. By default, you are granted a revolver and the ability to craft a crossbow. But recruit the right NPC and you can slay zombies with a shotgun or a rifle, making combat a rewarding loop of fight enemies, craft better items, fight more enemies. The limited ammunition and the crafting required to make more expensive and interesting weapons a mainstay of my inventory ensured that I never felt too overpowered but that I would still approach each fight with a strategy.
Zelter is a game that definitely feels incomplete. The initial trailer promises a lot, a hectic zombie survival game where you can build up a resistance of humans that can all survive together. However, in its current state, at the time of this review, Zelter just doesn’t have enough of a compelling argument to choose to play it over similar games in an oversaturated genre. The core gameplay can be enjoyable and although the game does its best to get players engaged right away with zombies nearby and resources to start crafting and fighting right away, unfortunately, without a core story or some endgame to chase, it can be easy to just go through the motions of Zelter and quickly getting bored. It is definitely a game to keep an eye out for and there is a lot of potential if the developers fix some issues and add more content, but I would not recommend it to anyone but those interested in early access games or need a new survival crafting game to play.
Check Out the Zelter Trailer:
Zelter is available for $19.99 for Windows PC via Steam Early Access. You can find all of Zelter’s social media on their website playzelter.com and stay up to date with all of the development and new features G1 Playground is working on.
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My name is Matt Tran and I have been playing video games since I could remember holding a controller. I've always been a hardcore gamer growing up, from the hectic MW2 and Halo 3 lobbies, my many journeys through several Halo clans and my current exploits with my Destiny 2 clan. I love shooters and RPGs and overanalyzing every component of every game I've played, from weapon stats to ideal perks. When I have time to play other games, I currently play Genshin Impact and Star Wars Squadrons.
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