Gray Zone Warfare Early Access Review

ign.com:

It’s safe to say that Gray Zone Warfare isn’t trying to be an accessible extraction shooter like Call of Duty Warzone’s DMZ mode, but rather one for the hardcore realism set who want to feel the thrill of high-stakes victory and the agony of bleeding out after getting shot in the leg as you try to limp toward the chopper. Not everyone wants to fuss with deciding between 7.32 parabellum vs full metal jacket rounds, or dealing with the fact that 5.56x59mm rounds don’t fit in a magazine for 5.56x72mm. But for those who do, it serves that audience fairly well in its early access state – at least, when it isn’t crashing, failing to register clear hits, or making you and your friends wait in line for your ride home.

You and your four-person squad undertake very basic missions into hostile territory, completing tasks, clearing AI enemies, and gathering gear or quest items to take back with you. Dying on the battlefield means any equipment on you is lost, as you respawn empty handed back at camp, which does a great job making every death feel consequential. It is often possible to find your corpse and retrieve your lost gear, but you run the risk of others scavenging your goods, or dying on the retrieval attempt, and having your body despawn, which is effective at reinforcing an exciting sense of tension. That loop of deploy, fight, and extract is engaging thanks to challenging combat, and the irresistible pull of new and better equipment.

The battlefield and equipment strongly resemble the Vietnam war era, and in keeping with that setting, surviving out there is appropriately tough. Enemies, be they AI combatants or humans from opposing factions, are observant and accurate enough to pump rounds into you with lethal efficiency if you give them the chance. The sense of danger is palpable and exciting.

They are also durable, capable of shrugging off a surprising amount of gun shots and stab wounds. Some of that can be attributed to Gray Zone Warfare’s ambitious realistic