This game could've been up there with beloved indie projects like Project Zomboid or Don't Starve but this game was mismanaged in so many different ways. There are good parts of the game but there are still parts that boggles the mind how it was officially "released" other than to appease some people and try to sell microtransaction since it's not "early access" anymore.
The good parts of the game mostly come from the design and artistic aspect of the game, POIs look great, zombie designs and animation looks great, combat feels meaty and sound design is great but then you have f**king so much AI art for no reason (well, the reason is greed, as it always is).
I like the voxel building with almost every shape imaginable lets you build just about anything you want and horde night that building a purpose but then they change a bunch of mechanics that kind of forces you into a few designs that are dictated by how the devs "want" you to play. I kind of understand why they do this but it also leads to very little innovation and stifles creativity when every attempt to think outside the box is promptly patched and shut down.
Like many people, I don't really have as much qualms about the skill tree as I used to, even though there are still some questionably balanced skills and it's still kind of sucks that you're sort of forced into a certain weapon type based on your core skill early game until you can respec or get enough skill points to go into multiple core skills.
Speaking of questionable balance, armor stats and mods in the game still has some terrible balance. Some of these stats and bonuses are highly situational, if not downright useless. Armor and weapon mods are also subject to the messy balance with helmet mods having some of the most powerful mods in the game while the rest get some of the least useful mods in the entire game. Don't even get me started with the stealth mechanic...
Electricity is yet another underbaked and abandoned mechanic, there is very little reason to use electricity ever since it's introduction. There are still no electrical appliances like an electrical stove, chemistry station or anything that helps daily work. Other than the novelty of automated doors or highly expensive lights that are inferior to a perpetual lantern, the only real use is for electrical fence trap and turrets, which are usually only useful on horde nights.
There are still other little things I can complain about like zombies still attack while staggered or the lockpicking mechanic but Overall, the game is still good, even great at times but always fall short of being a truly great game it was meant to be, maybe another 20 years of development, millions of dollars and bandits will finally fix the game. /s
