Generation Zero

There are stranger things than you in Sweden.

- Ian Evenden

FILLING THE SWEDISH countryside with robots and 1980s references looked like such a good idea from a distance. Avalanche’s game blends Fallout 76 with Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and Stranger Things, with nods to the art of Simon Stålenhag (look him up, thank us later), and the end result is one of the most beautiful recreations of a natural landscape we’ve seen in videogames.

A co-op shooter for up to four that can be played solo, Generation Zero suffers most from its emptiness. It’s a slow starter, the lack of human NPCs beyond a few corpses contributing to a fantastically eerie atmosphere, but it’s also repetitive. The houses and outbuildings you search for the backpacks that contain anything from clothing to ammo to fireworks are depressingly similar, the same meals on the table, the same boxes, and bicycles in the garage.