Red Ops: The First Infection

I was looking forward to this game, but honestly it's kinda...meh. First off, the good: -Hot guys -Great Art style -Music fits the scenes The not so good: -It's barely a game...even compared to other visual novel type games, there's barely any meaningful choices, only the one romance option, and the chapters are incredibly short -The story, such as it is, feels kind of just tacked on -The writing quality is quite poor, and there's many lines of the script that needed an editing pass through (misspelled words, missing words, extra words etc) I'd give it like a 6/10 If you buy it, buy it on sale

I backed the project. I'm not going to lie, the writing is a bit... rough. It def could have used a bit more time and the development to the romance is just not at all believable. It's also just a little too mushy in places for my taste. But once it does reach its stride, it's fun. Plus, the art is honestly fantastic. The CGs and sprites look great, I love the character designs. Honestly, I *want* to know what happens next so overall, if you like military men, zombies, protective lovers, and ridiculous situations, it's worth your time and money. Also, for the record. With no context. They're a twunk...

Where do I even start.... I was a backer for this project and I really should have paid more attention to the kick-starter progress. I was under the impression this would have a decent length of playtime, have a serious story, and be very character focused. Man I feel like a clown now. Lets start with the good? The art is pretty good and clean. The models look decent enough and the CGs look professionally done. That's kinda all I liked from this project. There are only like 10 CGs in this thing so not much art to start with. The not so good? I was lead to believe from the material shown in the kick-starter that this would be a serious story with deep character growth and complex story themes. Maybe I just did not pay enough attention to the project while it was being made.... The writing feels very juvenile. Almost like it was an RP someone made with their friend. Mostly character dialogue with very little description of what is going on or what is being seen. The characters dialogue didn't seem appropriate for grown ass people. Maybe I just don't understand the youth these days. Not to mention the myriad of grammar errors. Guys get a proofreader please. These characters are 1 dimensional and I could not for the life of me tell them apart by their names. No one had a distinct personality other than horny. Which is fine....if that is the type of game you are advertising. There is also zero backstory for any of the characters and the romance was....nowhere to be found. The "love" scenes were vapid and uninspiring (the writing not the art). Very short? Like literally a minute long. The story was....all over the place. It was like part buddy cop and part zombie B-movie. Little to no drama. When a character dies, I felt nothing since they were a cardboard cut out and added nothing of value to the story. It couldn't make up its mind of whether it was a violent war story or a rom-com. I want to give these new developers the benefit of the doubt, but I spent 20 bucks that I cannot get back for a game this short and bad. This was either someone in over their head with an unpolished/unfinished product or some kind of scam that made some money and released a half assed VN. I have seen free visual novels have way more quality and care put into them. If this was just for fun or like a test run for making your first visual novel, don't ask for money. Do it as a side project. There is a "to be continued" after you finish and I'm afraid they plan to release a sequel for another 20 bucks. Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time with this. If you want a good laugh, wait till its on sale for like a dollar.

I was very much looking forward to this game once I heard about it. I missed the chance to support the game (financially) prior to launch, but shared some posts and spread some hype around the X-sphere. On launch day, I was very excited to get home and play it... only to finish all of the content in an hour. My playtime is slightly inflated due to some pause menu time, but, even then, the 1.2 hours represents the ENTIRE gameplay experience. Pros: - The art. Dudes are hot. It's a p*** game, so that should be expected. I don't believe any of it was AI-generated, perhaps some of the backgrounds. - The story line is pretty unique, especially for this genre. Cons: - The price tag. $20 isn't steep, but the game just does not have enough content, customization, etc., to warrant more than $4.99. - Lack of content. I have harped on this a bit, but the game just... isn't finished, nor is it labeled as early release. This is the final product. That is not okay. - No options. The calling card for most good VNs is the option of REAL player choice where your decisions impact the game in real time. But this game just has none. - Lack of romance option. You have one (that can involve a threesome). - No replayability. This is a fault that is derived from the lack of options, but a con in and of itself. - The dialogue. It's a bit contrived and forced. There is very little done to develop character, environments, settings, or rationale for decisions. It is very clearly designed to get you from s*x scene A to s*x scene B, so on and so forth. I could go on, but I feel like it is best summarized as this: a project that aimed to do so much, but fell so short of the goal that I cannot recommend buying or supporting it in its current state. There have been ZERO updates to the game (either bug fixes or content updates) since launch, no posts from the dev about the game's future, etc. This SCREAMS low effort cash grab, and I cannot, in good conscience, recommend anyone purchase it.

I kickstarter backed this game, and I would do it for the other episodes they haven't released yet, because I love the artist and I always want to see more visual novels of this genre that aren't from a Japanese studio (where the BL characters and art are too pretty/stereotypical and very obviously targeted at a fangirl audience -- this isn't like that and why I like it). That said, I would recommend you buy this with the right expectations... The good: - Great art (same artist as The Symbiant) - Saucy, well done CGs - LOTS of sex. Including 3 ways. And the characters switch top/bottom positions which I always appreciate. - Everything is explicitly consensual - Good action and spy scenes - Light comedy - There is a main storyline that wraps up by the end - It's a short play you can finish in an evening (2 to 3 hours?) which I like because I have no patience for multi-day visual novels anymore unless they have superb writing. Wish it were better: - The writing is just okay - The story line is just okay - The main character is kind of a chad but you'll get over it just as I did - The characters fall for each other out of nowhere while the story tries to convince you they are super into eaach other, beyond just wanting to bang. I didn't buy it, but I'll roll with it. - The sex scenes happen very suddenly, like everybody is just looking for an excuse to bang each other and the plot exists to make that happen (which no complaints b/c you get a lot of sex scenes that way, but you do have to suspend your belief of how relationship-building actually works) - The character art is non-existent outside of the main 3 characters, so get ready to theater of the mind every other character - The zombies all use the same art, copy and pasted multiple times on the screen. It was kind of comical. - The story definitely needs more chapters and you won't learn anything about the zombie outbreak or the deeper plot by the end of this chapter. I don't care about choice in these kind of visual novels so I didn't mark that as a con, although keep in mind that the choices are limited. They are enough to miss certain sex scenes and to get bad endings, but they're pretty obvious when you get the choice b/c you should obviously choose 1 over the other. Still save so you can get it all.

The story is well written and captivating! The characters are complex. Personally, I enjoy the character growth. In addition, I appreciate the respect for human lives demonstrated by expressing grief when the story amps up. There is also the right amount of light humor and sexy bits. The visual artwork is gorgeous. The expressions of the characters change with the dialogue which is very entertaining! I find their use of environmental ambient sounds to be perfect in setting the scene over loud music. This is a wonderful work of art. Only thing missing is steam achievements. Well done!

So full disclosure, I was a Kickstarter backer for this game and will be reviewing it bearing in mind that this is the first game from a new developer at a low-to-mid price point, so I'm going to be intentionally more fair-minded toward it than some. [i]Red Ops: The First Infection[/i] is a visual novel from Vincere Studio illustrated by Doubleleaf, who many bara game enthusiasts will recognise from their work on [i]Coming Out On Top[/i] and [i]The Symbiant[/i]. Set in contemporary society, it tells a fairly standard zombie outbreak story through the eyes of protagonist Zach - a military man who gets recruited for a mysterious mission alongside beefcake Chris, a mildly tsundere (at first) spec-ops bro with bara tiddies to die for. The course of their relationship and how it develops is the main driving force of the narrative, and Chris is the main canonical love interest for the vast majority of the plot. Doubleleaf's art is consistently high quality throughout and the spicy CG's are spread evenly and liberally throughout the length of the game. The amount of value you derive from that will stem from how much you appreciate the slightly cell-shaded, anime/comic art style. I feel it lends itself well to the pulp-action, Resident Evil-style presentation of the narrative. Each spicy scene has numerous variations and expressions to cycle through, rather than just being one static image. The story itself proceeds at an extremely breakneck pace. At times I did feel that the growing relationship between Zach and Chris could use a little more space and time to develop to avoid it feeling forced. Their relationship together progresses extremely quickly, but I guess this is reflective of the nature of some relationships forged in active combat. Later on in the story, the potential for a third character to enter their relationship and start a polyamorous route occurs, and I appreciated the no-nonsense way in which this was handled. The plot-point of the zombie outbreak itself remains fairly open-ended and while I appreciated the room for further development, I think the lack of meaningful explanation and resolution may irritate some players. Tonally, there's a fair amount of humour and a small bit of 4th-wall breaking served up alongside the zombie-blasting action and emotional highs and lows, which some may find off-putting. Personally, I found it fairly true to the [i]Resident Evil[/i] style narrative that [i]Red Ops[/i] clearly draws some degree of inspiration from. Imagine if Leon Kennedy and Chris Redfield went on a mission together and banged. Frequently. Right in front of Ada Wong's salad. The kind of slightly bro-y, slightly meme-y tongue-in-cheek humour mixed in with macho military camaraderie is what you're going to be getting here, and that was what I wanted to be honest. To address the "lack of choices" raised in other reviews, in my 3+ hour playtime so far I uncovered one bad end, the potential to miss out on [spoiler] two three-ways [/spoiler], potentially a [spoiler]character death[/spoiler] and two completely different branching chapters toward the end of the story that unlocked several different CG's, so to say there "barely any meaningful choices" is disingenuous to say the least. You can even pick what colour suit you want your MC to wear, if you want to be pedantic. I'm still missing 6 CG's which I will go back and hunt for, so clearly there are more choices and things to uncover than some would have you believe. This does bring up the lack of Steam Achievements however, which I feel would have been a positive addition to the game and given people a better incentive and indication that there is more to discover than the average play-through may suggest. In conclusion, [i]Red Ops[/i] is a promising start to Vincere Studios journey as a game developer and I hope it succeeds so they can continue to develop their skills and exceed their beginnings. If they continue to make games in the [i]Red Ops[/i] series, I'd like to see them develop their world, setting and narrative a little more fully as well as provide a few more branching routes and potentially more varied romance options (a gruff military Daddy Bear please), but overall with this amount of quality art and 4+ hours of gameplay I consider it well worth the spend.

Atmospheric and engaging. I really like the art style, ambient sounds, and excellent story progression. Come for the sexy scenes, stay for the unexpectedly complex and emotional story line! Edit: After completing four endings, I'm really missing the Steam achievements! I hope some will be added at some point.

Update (February 14, 2026): A short follow-up, Red Ops: Side Story, has since released and adds more continuation to Chris and Zach’s story. This first entry still ends mid-arc, but it is no longer the final word. 🎮 Gameplay & Genre This is a choice-based BL/yaoi visual novel with mild branching. Your decisions shape the emotional arc and the romance—whether you stick with your main guy or open the door to a threesome. It’s about 2 hours long, has no achievements, and ends right as things get interesting... which is part of the problem. 🔥 M/M Content Zombies, sweat, and survival lust. The sex scenes are explicit and well-illustrated, with a strong emotional throughline. Chris and Zach have solid chemistry that evolves from friction to intimacy. Maxim is the optional wildcard—you can welcome him into the fold or not, depending on your choices. 🎨 Visuals & Style Crisp, attractive art that leans into comic-style sex appeal. Well-drawn characters, expressive scenes, and clean UI. If you’re here for muscled bodies and tight clothing torn during apocalyptic peril, you’ll leave satisfied. 🗣️ Tone & Writing The writing balances raunch with real emotion. While the setup is familiar (reluctant partners forced to rely on each other), the execution works. That said, it ends mid-arc. Not abruptly—but clearly unfinished. Given how long it’s been since release with no word on a sequel, there’s a strong chance this is all we get. 👍 Best Thing Chris and Zach’s relationship. Their banter, tension, and eventual tenderness are the heart of the story—and the sex feels earned. 👎 Worst Thing The ending. It’s not a cliffhanger so much as an ellipsis. The game stops at the moment things are about to shift, and as of now, there's no indication a Part 2 is coming. ⭐ Final Verdict A solid M/M romance VN with steamy art and decent choices, but it ends mid-story with no sequel in sight. Still a worthy pickup for fans of queer apocalyptic fiction. I also curate a Steam page reviewing M/M games if you’re looking for more titles in this space: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45790038/

A charming story with much action and jokes and attractive characters. I hope there will be a sequel 😉