Outpost Zero

[quote][b][URL=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware]Spyware Warning![/URL][/b]This game acts as spyware and performs personal data gathering and transmission. There's no immediate apparent way to opt out. This is completely unethical and reprehensible. Gamers must be aware of the dangers of installing this harmful software and should avoid this completely.[/quote] Outpost Zero is an older, abandoned game from 2019. It's a venerable 5 years old at the time of this review. It's got a very compelling pitch, as most abandoned Early Access survival games do, you're on an alien planet and you build a base, harvest resources etc. This one carried a bonus promise of giving you some lightweight factory building on top of that, which can prove to be tremendously successful. In the case of Outpost Zero, it's a broken promise from a shady and unethical developer, so as usual, buyer beware! Problematically, this game left Steam Early Access without being properly completed or polished by the developers. This is arguably worse and less ethical than when developers persist in selling abandoned Early Access bundles instead of removing them from Steam. Selling an incomplete Early Access game without the Early Access warning is a deliberate act to mislead/fool gamers into buying a knowingly abandoned and defective product. This is not okay. On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers. The developers didn't design the game for modern gaming PCs, as such the display resolution caps out at around 1440p, there's no support for the state-of-the-art 4K or higher resolutions. The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers. From my experience with the game, it's somewhat bug riddled and has design/implementation/stability problems that will render this unplayable for many gamers. Because the game was dumped out of Early Access without being completed, the developer left a huge number of game breaking bugs and glitches unaddressed... yet they still want your money for this and now they're trying to sell this as a complete product. This is not okay! I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. Developers doing this deliberately are being highly unethical. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. You're forced to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement. This agreement includes questionable (and possibly law breaching) privacy requirements that no gamer should ever have to engage in. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. I had my cat walk over the keyboard while the EULA was displaying, which fixed that problem for me. As mentioned, this game behaves as spyware and collects "telemetry" and personally identifying information. There is no apparent way to prevent this hostile and sinister privacy invasion. The developers will make the unverifiable claim that this data isn't personally identifying, of course that's BS as they're collecting IPs and all kinds of other information about gamers, when combined with other profiling data this can 100% identify an individual. They say it's for "QA" purposes but there's no guarantee they're not profiling you or selling your data to third parties as they spy on you. Should you trust them? Of course not... if they had any concerns about user safety and privacy, [i]they wouldn't have built spyware into their game with no way to disable it![/i] There's simply no reason to trust them and gamers should avoid this game because of this unacceptable privacy invasion. So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam? Outpost Zero has the scam price of $20 USD (for a bug riddled abandoned Early Access game infested with spyware, from a "developer" that colludes with Tencent for all kinds of unethical practices), for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, and the questionable ethical nature of the developer and/or their associates (as outlined above), this is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $20 asking price for this game could get you games like "Yakuza 0", "The Outer Wilds" or "Factorio". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. [b]Note:[/b] The developer has colluded with Tencent backed interests to withhold some of their games from Steam in a brazen act of anticompetitive behaviour. This is harmful to gamers and to the gaming industry, and is completely unethical behaviour intended to cause this harm for short term profit. While games absolutely should be considered on their own merits, as I have in my review above, gamers must be cautious when buying games from unethical developers like this. There's no telling when they will accept more bribes and pull their games off Steam again... they've done it once, they can't be trusted. Gamers have a right to know about this. If you buy this game you may be putting your money at risk.

This is Abandonware. There hasn't been any updates or any developer communication in years. DO NOT BUY Unless you see some sort of progress being made in the development of the game after the date of this review. It honestly should be illegal for them to still make money off of the game that they have not done anything with and never got finished. It may not have an Early Access label anymore, but it 100% is still in the Early Access development stages of the game.

unfinished! stay away from this and its developer!

Hasn't gotten an update in ages and feels meh to play. Definitly not worth it. The last update the developer branch of this game got was 4 years ago. The fact that they relased this out of Early Access is a scam.

glad i only had it for a free weekend

Stinky bad game

Had great potential. Completely abandoned now.

Well, this fully released sandbox game is more early access than many of the early access sandbox games I've played. I really can't name a single part that feels complete and polished. Lot of bugs and lacks in many regards, just missed opportunities all around.

This Game was good Years ago and than they did an update that in my opining kill the The game Big Time. It had a great idea but It was left alone for Too long and so the Game is Dead to me at lest

The devs has left this game to rot. Tried it because of IGP. Sadly not worth the time or money.