The Anacrusis

Souless l4d2 clone. At first glace the game looks kinda cool with its futuristic setting but the more you dive in the more you'll notice how bland it is. Also, playing it with bots it's such a pain, they either get stuck somewhere, rush into the middle of a hoard or try to save someone and end up on the ground instead. Though, sometimes the bots work perfectely fine. I assume if you have friends to play it with, it's a day and night difference. The game can be easily found for 50 cents on grey markets so for that price it's worth giving it a shot. Maybe you'll like it, sadly, I didn't.

What if Left for Dead was obnoxiously woke, boring, cringe, not at all grim dark, and way more janky? well Anacrusis is here to answer that question. it's not good, its not terrible, but the gay pandering obviously didnt work but absolutely no one is playing this game.

It's a marathon to make this game. Even though it's short, it's boring to death. It's a Left 4 Dead for children: Without gore, without blood, without fear, without players. It's empty of everything.

When I first saw one of Tyler McVicker's video, I was captivated by all the retrofuturistic beauty this game had to offer. I tried it out back when it was in Early Access and on Xbox Game Pass (which was still cool back then compared to today). Since it comes from the creator of the Left 4 Dead franchise, there was a lot of hype surrounding it and plenty of people to play with. However, if you look at SteamDB today, the game is only kept alive by a handful of people on weekends, which really hurts playability across all multiplayer sections. That said, The Anacrusis isn't completely unplayable. You can play the campaign in a private lobby with bots; it has 5 episodes and takes about 2 hours to beat. Honestly, it would have been better if the game had more campaigns, as I suspect that is exactly why so many people walked away from it. I'm glad I got to play the game, but I'm also disappointed because it could have been something more.

[h1]The Anacrusis truly feels like a prototype Back 4 Blood rather than L4D. Suffers from abymsal sound design clarifaction, soulless banter, rather poor optimization, unclear visual design and the classic modern game design.[/h1] Having played lot of L4D and a bit Back 4 Blood. This game sadly doesn't fit the bill. It really feels like a prototype game, it even has sound disappearing when lot of sounds play out. [h2] Optimization [/h2] Its optimization is rather questionable, when specials or lot of enemies spawn in, my FPS will spike really hard and freeze me. Even with my low end PC, i say this is a bad sign. Exactly the same as Back 4 Blood. [h2] Enemy and Sound design [/h2] The enemy design is not clear what it does. Given how the sound design is really abysmal; you really don't know what is happening unless you're seeing it with your eyes. Common enemies attack have very short first strike animation and not clear footstep or sounds. Remember L4D? You would know exactly when a zombie was on to you or was about to attack you or if it was idle near you. The same applies to the specials. They are no signs and only the bots helped by telling when someone was near. [b]How can you have a game without a sound design where split second decisions and FPS shooting is crucial? The whole sound design makes me give a big red card on this.[/b] The brute should have been more of a boss enemy rather than a mini-tank of L4D or a nuisance. Sadly, the bots are weak against him since they don't retreat or stay too close to you when they fight him [h3] Characters [/h3] The characters themselves are lacking, you don't feel emotion in them. It is like they are robots or voiced by an AI. i seen this even in Back 4 blood. Everything they say is forgettable, only when you get hit, they yell "pulse pulse", warning the players to use their "shove". I am heavily displeased how we are in the 2020s, and the friendly AI can't be ordered around, take special weapons and use them. We have to get mods to do that,which further shows how solo play is really neglected. [h2] Pulse(shove) [/h2] Ah yes, the pulse. Well, what I can say? Such tech should have been explained at the start of the first level to teach the players what is it and how to use it. Unlike the shove in L4D where it is obvious what it does; in this game, you don't know its radius and limits from first using it. Not only that, i see the pulse has a delay(after it has been used) when it gets used and [b]that is exactly why i hated the common enemies hitting you too fast. [/b] There is nothing more to say really, it is a Back 4 Blood prototype than sticking its roots to L4D. And i don't mean literal design or style. i mean its simplicty and clear visual design(as well as audio). [b]I can't understand what is going on, who is who and where is that who. [/b] It should have been for characters to speak more and give hints, some subtle hints like specific special enemies or what to do. But it is classic script, "we are going the right way through here" (not literal example) [u]Fix the sound design, optimization and the visual design and maybe we have an actual game.[/u] Sound design is crucial as well as immersive or even funny banter between the player characters. My ears should be my second pair of eyes crucial as my own eyes. Also, fix that boring UI, both game and especially the main menu. Having to take a whole minute to find how to make a lobby and then start a game. See? Even the main menus in modern game design have become obtuse [h1]Get this only on a heavy sale and do not hope it will be close to L4D. Think of it as something else. [/h1] Trying to think this game is close to L4D, i would call that an insult to L4D. Let's not throw that term around randomly without a reason, yes?

It's such a shame because you can see there's a game here which needs another dozen or so passes to make it playable. I feel actually tricked in that this game should still be in Early Access, even for the 2 bucks I paid for it.

Good style on a decent L4D-like. You can't expect the same level of polish as a Valve title but the feel is pretty close.

Chet Faliszek is an out of touch ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to people in the industry

Blander than communion wafers.

Game feels floaty, weapons are bland "blaster-types" which don't feel distinct from one another, enemy design is just re-skinned L4D specials with worse AI and uglier models. Genuinely, just buy Back 4 Blood if you want a L4D rip-off. Dev Chet Faliszek also does nothing but whine about politics on his streams and social media accounts, so good luck keeping up to date with anything their company is doing.