Delta Zone is a "hardcore realistic survival looter shooter game"
It's not really realistic though, even though it tries really hard, and unfair and hardcore are debatable.
I died two times in the game, both times, I was inside a building and the shooter outside, with no visibility or window to shoot through.
Considering you lose everything when you die, that's a very harsh penalty for a faulty game mechanic.
But enough with my personal salt.
The game looks good, I play with a RTX4090, R7700CPU, 16GOram, and i have a stable 120fps on 1920x1080 upscaled to 4k.
But... and that's a big butt (got it?), the upscale IS necessary, or the game is a blurry mess full of edges and aliasing. The game recommends playing with DLSS, yeah, don't do that, unless you want to make the game even more blurry.
Ironically, there is also an image sharpening filter that can't be disabled.
Which means each time you move your camera,, you switch between puke inducing blurriness to extra sharp pixel family where daddy anti-aliasing forgot to come back home after purchasing his cigarettes.
It's not that hard to make a UE5 game looks good, that's what the engine is for, but tweaking it to have consistent quality would be nice.
Also, for some reasons, in first person, we can't see our character model.
The sounds are good too. Actually, your ears will be your best friend during the game, so good headset is mandatory.
Butt, and it's a big but (still got it?) the sound quality can be really bad at times. The rain and storm sounds play on a loop and you can clearly ear when it ends and begin anew. Some sounds are of bad quality too.
Can someone explain to me why the silencer makes more sound than the compensator or absence of muzzle? I had to stop using it to stop my ears bleeding.
Let's talk hardcore gameplay. The game insists heavily on the fact you should play smart, avoid being detected, avoid big gunfights, or even fighting altogether, and also tells you you'll have higher surviving chances during the night. And you should avoid walking through vegetation because it will slow you down and make a lot of noise.
All of that is true. Vegetation also tears through your clothes, which makes you more vulnerable to attacks or getting captured (and raped).
Yet, you can't lie on the ground, you can only crouch, you can't walk slower, so if you are not crouching, you are always running and making a lot of noise.
Look game, if you want me to be stealthy, give me the tools to be stealthy. If you want to be a hardcore stalker wannabe, remember that in stalker, you can crouch further down, and you can walk slower. Also, silencer, even if yes, I know they don't make your weapon silent, shouldn't pierce your eardrums.
Fortunately, there are plenty of places where you can exploit corners to your advantage if you have to gunfight. But always remember to protect your back from time to time.
The goal of the game is too...
There is no goal.
You go outside, find some places to loot, try to stay alive, kill people when you can to loot them, and find traders to sell your loot and buy necessities like weapon repair kits and sewing kits.
Those two objects are your best friends. The first one can be used in workbenches to maintain your weapon(s), and the other anywhere to keep your clothes in good condition.
The trick is, traders are poor.
So you can't sell them much, and they aren't a reliable source of income. You also need to upgrade them in order to get better gear from them, but it's bugged, sometimes they reset to a lower tier.
And most of the time, they keep selling you crap anyway.
Oh, and they are not in restricted areas, so you may be attacked or killed during the transactions, yay!
Because who would hire bouncers to protect a freaking nightclub in an anarchic warzone?
It also keeps the game loop really short.
Leave the hideout=>go to the trader=>kill a dozen people around the trader=>trader runs out of money, you run out of things to buy or sell=>go back to the hideout.
Why bother going further than this?
The longer you stay in the zone, the harder the game becomes. It has adaptative AI, and at some point, you'll either run out of good ammo or of sewing kits.
You don't need to eat, drink, or sleep, but you need to be careful not to get pregant, which brings me to the least fun part of the game, but probably the reason you'd play it anyway.
if you run out of stamina during a gunfight, the soldiers will rush you and rape you. Doing so, they will transmit either eggs or tentacles to you.
Good news, you can use contracetives. Bad news, they are completely useless.
Bad news, for a fair exchange of their contaminated seeds, they will take some of your loot and equipement.
Yes, you need a workbench to place or remove some parts on your gun. The soldiers must have a portable workbench on them because they don't have such restrictions.
Good news, you can chase your rapist, kill them and get your equipment back.
Bad news, you need to find a workbench to reassemble your gun.
Overall, the adult content of the game is extremely tedious. And the rules aren't really clear.
Sometimes, I can spend 15minutes in a gunfight against dozen of soldiers without depleting my stamina or needing to take medication.
Sometimes, a single shot from a lonely soldier that doesn't even touch me is enough to stagger me and get raped.
The AI also varies from braindead (aka, it's dark night, I put my flashlight in their face but they don't notice me) to godlike 6th sense where they'll notice you in the dark, hidden, without moving from across the map.
To conclude, the game is slightly above average in everything it does, and the "hardcore' part is more leaning toward the unfair and frustrating than challenging.
Graphics are good, but I've seen better. Sound design is good, but I've heard better, the exploration is good, but pointless. The maps are gorgeous, but there is no reason to explore them. You have more chance to lose what you have than come back with more, especially since both your personal and base inventories are very small.
