Another year of surviving against the machine threat has passed and Generation Zero is turning 5 years old. We can’t overstate how happy we are that we’ve been able to support this game we love so much for such a long time, bringing you new content, quality of life, and of course bug fixes.
Let’s have a look at the last 5 years of development.
2019
From the initial release of the game in 2019 to two story DLCs and 30 major updates since, it’s fair to say that GZ has had an eventful journey. It’s hard to pick any single event to highlight as there were so many impactful releases that we’re immensely proud of.
The launch of the game was, as all game launches are, exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. We were so happy for players to finally get their hands on what we had been working on for three years.
The YouTuber IGP started a series on GZ right at release, which to this day is one of the biggest factors to making it a success. His support during the first few months and throughout the years after has had a tremendous impact and we can never thank him enough for it. If you’d like to check out his series on GZ, head here.
url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HahZwv3CQp0&list=PLVxH6E2fftreo-OiPWnysv3ABtxEbR2Lm&index=1
From the initial response, it was immediately clear that we had hit the mark when it came to atmosphere, sound design, and world building. On the other hand, it was also apparent that we had work to do when it came to stability and bugs, which we got on right away.
Within the first year, we released 10 updates bringing tons of fixes alongside new content like bicycles, the storage box, rivals, and experimentals.
In November, we even released the first story DLC, Alpine Unrest, which took players to snowy Himfjäll island and posed a new threat in the shape of Apocalypse class machines. We also switched the presentation of the inventory from a grid-based system to a list view to accommodate for the new items being added.
2020
In 2020, we slightly reduced the cadence of our updates, opting instead for bigger releases with longer periods of quality assurance. It was kicked off by the infamous April 2020 Update, which introduced an accidental change to machine AI that led to players dying left and right. To this day, we have a small and very vocal part of the community asking for the April difficulty to be added back to the game and who knows, maybe one day we’ll be able to take the time and effort required for such a huge change. It would certainly be fun to watch!
2020 also brought the game’s second major story DLC with FNIX Rising. It revamped the South Coast region with menacing FNIX structures and had you establish further relationships with the Resistance, which was preparing to deal a major blow to the machines. This was also the glorious beginning of Melee Weapons!
November brought us the biggest bad in Östertörn so far, the Reaper Tyrant. Watching players having to adapt their tactics to defeat this new enemy and get the best loot (yes, you get better loot if you destroy it before it self-destructs) was so satisfying for us. It's exactly what we designed it for and we loved to see that the community enjoyed it as much as we did.
2021
2021 was a quiet year for Generation Zero. We added repeatable daily and weekly Assignments and the Resistance Update brought Base Building and Base Defense to the game. Sadly, there was a deep-rooted issue that was discovered in that update which delayed its release by multiple months for the Xbox community. This threw a wrench in the works of our development plans, but it wouldn’t be GZ without the computers rising up against their creators. Eventually, we were able to - once again - triumph over the machines and the Resistance Update arrived on Xbox just before the end of the year.
2022
We really picked up the pace again in 2022. Starting out with Landfall, the update that introduced Soviet machines as a new enemy faction, we kept our heads down and worked on features we had seen you request in our annual player surveys. In April, procedural base assaults gave you an ever-changing challenge and tons of new spots to build a base in. We overhauled the intro missions of the game, adding the NPCs Therese and Pontus to guide new players and introduce them to all the systems we had implemented over the years. Both of them were a hot discussion topic due to their… unique personalities and dialogue.
This was also the year when Neebs Gaming decided to pick up Generation Zero and film a series of hilarious antics, bringing a new audience to the game and smiles to the faces of hundreds of thousands - including the dev team. We’re so incredibly grateful to them for putting their unique spin on our game and showing it to the world. Their GZ video playlist can be found here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ8Eudogu1I&list=PL1Uou2DWH7IGNbXolZicwaFcztb9OOxgY
Fitting for a release around Halloween, we added yet another much-requested thing: A flying enemy - the Firebird. Feared for its high damage attacks and hard to hit weak spots, it instills fear in even experienced players to this day. Luckily, this update also introduced Motorbikes, a means to get away from the Firebirds (or towards them) faster and safer.
To round out the year, we had one more community request to answer: new Experimentals. With the experimental KVM-89, Revolver, and Älgstudsare, new ways of approaching combat were born. We especially loved players taking on the role of “mobile artillery” with the Älgstudsare, a dev-favorite playstyle (no, not because we’re bad at the game).
2023
This brings us to the year that brought you Guerrilla fighter’s best friend: the Companion. Fans and devs alike rejoiced when it was adopted in July 2023 and instantly spent hours getting it, customizing it, and taking it out for dangerous walks. While we sadly couldn’t give you free choice in naming your new buddy, we made sure to include lots of options for you to choose from and have been adding more since! If you have ideas for names we should add, please let us know. There can never be enough!
Eventually, winter time came around and we made sure to include two more updates before the end of the year. With the Guerrilla Research Update, weapon augmentation was made available and allowed each player to get even more in-depth in tinkering and tailoring their arsenal to their own playstyle. The most revered Augmentation Designs are (rather unsurprisingly) Life Stealing and Oversized Clip. Who doesn’t want to fire 500 rounds from an LMG and heal themselves with it?
Finally, we added a new mode of transportation - the Flakmoped. No longer just bound to riding alone, players formed mobile assault units with the combined fire power of a small country, getting flipped over constantly - having 4 players’ physics interact with the same vehicle at the same time is too much for a system where riding a bike into a pebble at 5km/h sends you flying.
2024 and on
So that’s it, the last 5 years of development! As any video game project, Generation Zero has had its ups and downs. We are extremely proud of the game it has become and the plans we have for it. All of this would never have been possible without the support of our beloved community - you!
Over 6 million players have joined the Resistance. You’ve destroyed machines and built the resistance. You’ve joined us during Dev Streams and created tons of content yourself. Many beautiful works of art have been created in honor of Generation Zero. You’ve also given us constructive feedback and stuck around to see us implement it over the years. Numbers cannot express the impact you’ve had on us and the game, but we can try to put it into perspective:
We are aware that having such a big player base is a huge privilege and also a responsibility. If you have been following us for the last few months, you’ll have noticed that there is a major focus on improving the stability and player experience of the game. These efforts will of course continue as we develop more content for you to play, starting with the next major update. We will keep supporting Generation Zero with new content, quality of life, and narrative in the future.
Thank you all so much for being the best community any game developer could ask for.
Special thanks go out to:
- Our Discord moderators asidk9thorn, Dreguen, Hyäne, Major, Miles Lexicon, Rayleigh, Sgt Engee, and VioletThunder9. You rock.
- Our Forum moderator Zesiir, for enhancing many Dev Streams with his presence and helping us keep the Forum a positive and constructive environment.
- Our former moderators Ichi, Larz, Mirrin, Pronto, and Sanginius, for gracefully handling the influx of users during the Beta and at launch.
- Tenebris Infinite and Wired Gaming for consistently covering GZ with YouTube videos and streams. Many would have been lost without your informative content!
- All the dedicated artists who put time and effort into creating fanart, much of which adorns our office walls.
With all the love,
The Generation Zero Dev Team
