Video Game Review - Endzone: A World Apart - Survivor Edition

Rob reviews Endzone: A World Apart - Survivor Edition on Xbox Series X...

Endzone is a city builder come survival game that tasks players with "cancelling the Apocalypse". Originally debuting on PC back in 2021, developer Gentlymad Studios have now brought Endzone onto consoles. 

Following a global nuclear disaster, the Earth was rendered an inhabitable wasteland, and humanity teetered on the edge of being wiped out. Now hundreds of years later, with background radiation being at a (sort of) tolerable level, what's left of humanity looks to reclaim the ravaged planet. With a scarce amount of resources at hand, can you lead humanity to prosper once again?

Rebuilding humanity isn't an easy task and as such the game features an incredibly robust tutorial. As tutorials go, the one here almost feels like a game in its own right as you're shown everything that the game has to offer - no matter how minute. From learning how to harvest and process materials, producing electricity, protecting against threats, and even educating your citizens are all topics that this expansive tutorial throws at you. As such its very easy to say that Endzone: A World Apart has a very steep learning curve, and is not for the impatient amongst us. 

Aside from this heavy tutorial, the game also has two other modes in the form of 'Survival' and 'Scenarios'. Both game types essentially live up to their namesake, and for obvious reasons are vastly different. Survival is your typical sandbox mode which tasks you with simply surviving. There's plenty of adjustable difficulty settings and options which allow you to tailor the experience to how you see fit. Once you've chosen your level of challenge, you're then thrown into the wasteland to build it in your image. It was great to experiment with various layouts and conditions which could ultimately decide if your settlement prospers, or destroys itself. 

On the other hand is Scenarios, which offers a bunch of pre-made situations for you to master. This is where you'll put your knowledge to the test as you'll face off against relative hardship and other dire situations. It's a mode that's definitely not for the faint hearted, and one wrong decision can certainly lead to failing the mission at hand. For example some of the scenarios include creating a thriving community while the land is barren, fending off rampent bandit gangs, and even cracking down on brewing rebellions within your cities walls. They're certainly very varied, and offer plenty of replayability - especially if you crumble and have to start again. 

When it comes to presentation, Endzone: A World Apart looks great on the Xbox Series X. It's buildings are rich in detail, and the streets are awash with activity. While the landscape is filled with motted browns and green, it works really well to push the post apocalyptic world to the player. When you throw in plenty of ramshackle shacks, and huts it starts to feel very real. The overall soundtrack also helps to build the atmosphere with a cohesive musical score, and a lot of present sound effects. 

As mentioned above, Endzone: A World Apart does have a steep learning curve. While it most definitely rewards you for investing your time in it, it's not without it's issues. The user interface isn't the most user friendly and can be very difficult to navigate. This is mainly seen when you want to change production as you'll have to manually adjust each building along the production line - and theres a lot of buildings for each resources. Sub menus are also tough to navigate, which lead to a few head scratching moments as I searched for what I needed. 

If you're a fan of city-builders then Endzone: A World Apart is a worthy investment. While it does have a very steep learning curve, the title does reward patient players with a vast strategic builder, with a rich resource manager thrown in. 

Rating: 7/10 

Endzone: A World Apart is available now and can be purchased via the Microsoft Store. 

A code was kindly provided for this review. 

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Rob Lake - For more comic book and video game chat why not follow Geek Culture Reviews on Twitter and Facebook @GeekCultureRev