Have you ever taken a bite of something, having already made your mind up about the taste, but then it tasted completely different? In the worst way? Well, that’s exactly what my experience with Expedition Zero was like.
Let me start by saying I don’t think the game is unredeemable. I just think it’s currently being pulled down by so many technical and balancing issues that it’s hard to focus on the good. You play as an unnamed protagonist desperately trying to escape from an area that is quickly becoming overrun by infected and other monsters. However, as the site has already been walled off, they can’t seem to find a way out. Luckily, a mystery person is willing to help you escape in return for a small favour. An unknown beast has killed many soldiers, and you need to go to the scene of the murders and collect samples for this mystery man, which is where the game truly starts.
Expedition Zero never holds your hand. Instead, it throws you into an unforgiving world where everything from the temperature to the inhabitants wants you dead and expects you to survive. The game never gives you any direction, and at all times, you are just a couple of degrees away from freezing to death. Unlike many other games, resting does nothing to heal you, so you’ll find your health constantly shrinking away, thanks to the freezing conditions. You can regain health by making fires, but those are temporary solutions at best and combined with the fact that your character moves at a pace a 90-year-old would be ashamed of, fires never seem to be close enough together.
Your character’s dreadfully painful movement speed is one of the significant issues I found with the game. Not only does it make any exploration a painful process because of the ever-present cold, but there is also a monster constantly hunting you throughout the game. This monster easily moves 100000000 times faster than you at your best and can also teleport, meaning outrunning it is just never an option.
You’d be correct to presume that in a game where outmanoeuvring an enemy isn’t an option, the combat would be quick and agile. You would be wrong. You have access to an axe, a crowbar, and a gun throughout the game. The two melee options are redundant as the chance of catching the monster is roughly zero, and the gun seems to be about as effective against it as pointing your fingers while yelling BANG! and to top all of that frustration off, if and when the monster does catch you. You almost always instantly die. Lovely.
There are also a plethora of other issues I came across while playing, everything from my heat gauge not filling up even though I was basically on top of the fire, my character getting stuck on objects, to him point-blank refusing to take out weapons or reload. All of which are already frustrating in isolation, but combined with the constant freezing and overly aggressive monster always on your tail, make for an experience that more frequently had me feeling angry than scared.
