A few years ago the absolute ruler of a market that was slowly settling into the 2.0 internet, today the MMORPG sector lives an unexpected second life, even if it is very far from the numbers ground up a few decades ago. Although, numbers in hand, the sector no longer attracts hordes of screaming players as it once did, this has not stopped the industry, especially the independent one, from making more or less varied proposals. And this is the case with Population Zero, Sci-fi MMORPG currently in Early Access on Steam and with a truly intriguing and innovative "twist", developed by the Russian software house Enplex Games. But let's go in order.
Population Zero is a massive online RPG set on a futuristic planet called Kepler, not far from the imaginative aesthetics that at the time proposed No Man's Sky of the concept of representation of an alien planet. The title, characterized by evident Survival and sandbox elements, has a very special feature as mentioned, which distinguishes it from the rest of the category: in the game, in fact, we will play one of the many colonizers of the planet, sent to explore space after the Earth is became the scene of terrible natural disasters following the discovery and use of a revolutionary source of energy that consumed it. But the alien planet will have a difficult challenge in store for us: each settler, in fact, will be called within 168 hours (a full week) to collect enough resources to repair their escape pod, used after the explosion of the transport mother ship that was aimed at. to Kepler, and hibernate to avoid a "catastrophe" and his own complete transformation into a mad beast, called Void, in a very similar concept that also appeared in successful TV series like The 100.
By accessing the game, greeted by a surprisingly well made soundtrack between the electronic and orchestral environment, we will be introduced to a simple menu that will allow us to immediately start the adventure, letting us come across the first, particular feature of the game: Population Zero will offer, as a role, a double linear progression, one "relative" and the other "absolute". As for the first, it will be related to our character in the "run" that will see us look for the necessary resources to save himself in a real week of play, under penalty of extinction (in practice, the shared reset of the session). In this sense, in case of defeat, our character would be restored by losing not only buildings and materials collected, but also the various talents that will be unlocked by performing different actions during the game (although there will be few that will resist the reset). At the end of a cycle, therefore with our victory or defeat within the seven-day limit, we will obtain "off game" experience points that will allow us to increase the overall level of the account. As the levels progress, we will get new features by unlocking different modes, such as the one in which we will be able to fight against other players, to "technological" unlocks and that will allow us to build and equip ourselves with increasingly effective and useful tools for hard survival. It should also be noted that, every time we die in the game, we will get closer and closer to transforming ourselves into Void.
As often happens when entering a game with strong survival elements, one is often seized by a great sense of disorientation, struggling in the very first moments with menus that are often not very understandable and the urgency to learn the conceptual mechanics underlying the collection of resources and construction of buildings: in this sense, Population Zero welcomes us with a substantially well-made tutorial that will softly introduce us to the harshness of Kepler. In the very first moments, stepping on the alien planet after the crash of our rescue ship, the game will teach us to survive by collecting resources and building the first rudimentary useful tools: in this sense, Population Zero will behave in a rather standard way, offering survival mechanics rather simple, at least conceptually, and loyal to the canons of the sector. A founding feature already listed is that each action will allow us to earn "Theory Point", which we can spend to learn the construction of different tools useful for survival: in this sense, Population Zero partly inherits the system appeared on No Man's Sky, allowing the accumulation of experience through the study of flora and fauna, but also of rocks etc.
Taking the first steps, we will realize that Kepler is not exactly a hospitable planet: it is in fact easy to come across the local fauna, which tends to be aesthetically “horrible” and very dangerous at least in the very early stages where we will be essentially helpless. In addition, we will soon find that among our priorities there will also be those of drinking and eating, exploring and procuring water and food of various kinds on the surface of Kepler, which will be quite extensive and characterized by six different biomes - such as a more swampy and toxic and another totally different - integrated together in a rather organic way. In addition to the physiological issues, we will also have to evaluate the surrounding environment well, always keeping an eye on the temperature and toxicity indicators, the extreme values of which could result in damage to our alter ego. Despite these characteristics, which will translate into an overall highly aesthetic differentiation and relatively impacting on the playful routine, after some time Kepler will lose some of its initial charm, also because the real progression of the game will be dictated by the quests which, to a very large extent, they will be characterized by the classic "infinite collections" that have always characterized the movements of MMORPGs. Despite, therefore, particular premises at the moment the title of Enplex Games does not differ from the classic comings and goings typical of MMORPGs, especially the Asian ones, full of missions "Go to point A - Get B - go to Point C", in English-speaking jargon defined fetch quest: of course we are still at the beginning, but in the future more diversified contents will certainly be needed if the game will want to impose itself.
From a more purely technical point of view, Population Zero will offer a respectable sector, albeit with all the limitations that an independent production brings with it, especially when compared to more noble titles (and with certainly different budgets). Concretely, the aesthetic aspect of the game will be more than good (even considering its status as Early Access on Steam), but characterized by rather visible limits, from low-resolution textures, especially environmental ones, to polygonal copy-pasted models (really, the first two NPCs we will meet in the game will be identical!) up to a general sense of poverty of the environments. Added to this are the very few options for customizing the character from an aesthetic point of view (at the beginning, it will not be possible to choose the features, but only the gender). An aesthetic that will raise more than one eyebrow for the choice of the color palette, a little too dull and unbalanced towards red.
In addition to a “chiaroscuro” aesthetic, technically speaking Population Zero is not free from visible defects, starting with some common bugs such as interpenetrations and some occasions in which our character has been stuck in the scenario for a few moments. But there are also other bugs (or alleged bugs) that are still able to make a difference: for example, we happened to have to succumb to an enemy because, despite having (little) life left, our character, suffering from "bleeding" , he inexplicably kneeled, remaining motionless, becoming easy prey of the enemy. Not to mention other problems, certainly server side, such as the failure to update the progression of the quests, which in the vast majority of the time is solved by exiting and re-entering the game, as well as a fallacious saving system (it has happened several times to exit the game to then re-enter and find oneself "one step back" in one's activities, as if a save had been loaded slightly earlier than the actual point where one had arrived). In addition, at least in the opening bars, Population Zero could be pretty tough for newbies to the industry, for a whole series of technical issues, starting from a not particularly balanced diffusion of the resources that can be collected: for example, it will be rather complicated to find basic rocks, fundamental in the construction of some necessary tools. Combat will also create some problems for us, especially due to a non-very precise targeting system of the opponents, with a hit box of variable models (probably, another problem connected to server micro-lag).
Another problem, strange to say, will be the vastness of the map related to our movement speed: we will often be called to complete missions that will force us to a very long exploration, triggered by missions that tend to force us to move away even a few kilometers from the areas safe. If we consider a certain slowness of our character related to a hostile environment, at least in the very first moments we have a clear idea that, in a game where time is of the essence, a good chunk of it will be invested in very long treks (which will double in case of our untimely death). Of course, these are issues and others not mentioned here that could be resolved and modified in the very first months of the game's life, in addition of course to the necessary addition of content to expand the offer. Last but not least, the overall performance: on a medium / high range system, the frame rate of Population Zero was not particularly granitic even at the lowest resolutions. To this, it should also be added that at the time of writing the article, there are very few options for graphic "tweaking", which are essentially limited to the mere choice of resolution and the general definition of the quality of the textures, as well as to activate or not of the V-Sync.
Population Zero is a very interesting title, the protagonist of an already present and consistent offer but, at its core, not particularly original. The premises, rather intriguing, in perspective promise high peaks of quality: at the moment, also due to its status of Early Access, it still has many limits to overcome and many aspects to file, starting from an imperfect technical state and some rigid margins of the gameplay. A title that is, however, certainly worth keeping an eye on.
► Population Zero is an Adventure-type game developed by Enplex Games for PC, The release is planned: TBA
