An absolute banger. Someone said "it's like how I remember HL1 being when I was a kid" and that hits the nail on the head. They've taken a classic to new heights, but the soul is still intact. A must play.

I've typed, deleted, and retyped this review, in attempts to accurately capture how I feel.

Long, short, I am grateful to have lived a little over 35 years, and am grateful to have played this game during that time. It is, without exaggeration, one of the best games I have ever played.

ZERO has no business being as good as it is.

You might think there's no way a 2d pixel game would capture that Tarkov magic. I thought that, but I was wrong. Raids are tough, and suspenseful, but leave you feeling like you earned ever inch of progress made. The game is far more forgiving that Tarkov - top of that list is that you only lose items found in that raid session, not what you brought - but leaves the core intact.

The main qualifiers to my opinion is that I am still relatively early game, and who knows where the project will end up still being in early access. What is here is already well worth the asking price, and it has its hooks in me. If you give it a chance, you'll likely find the same.

PUBG has had a complicated few months.

The briefest of glances through the most recent steam reviews, makes that pretty clear. What gets lost in a lot of the hyperbolic "THIS GAME IS ♥♥♥♥ CHINA HACKERS RUIN EVERYTHING HIT dETECTION LOOT CRATES OMFG" comments, is that the majority of the negative reviewers have spent hundreds of hours in game. Hundreds. If someone is having a negative experience, why are they plugging hundreds of hours into the damn thing?

The real answer, is that people are playing because there is something special here. Yes, the developers have made some missteps, including pumping out cosmetic content ahead of promised changes to stability, performance and gameplay. Yes the game is imperfect, and yes the 1.0 release should have been delayed. But there's a reason why many of us having been playing steadily for months, and why many of those complaining will continue to plug hundreds of hours into this game.

Hackers? In my 444 hours of game time, I've been killed by a total of 3 people I suspected to be hacking. Loot crates? I've sold enough crates and items, to pay for the game multiple times over, and buy a few in game items. Performance issues? Abso-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥-lutely, but they have been steadily improving, and look to get better yet with the recent serve tick rate increase.

Battle Royale games are here to stay, and I have no doubt that successors will come along to eventually replace PUBG. In the meantime, I will continue to play, savouring the agony and the ecstasy of trying to outlast 99 other people to take home a chicken dinner. In all the hours of my play, I haven't forgotten what it felt like to see those words on my screen for the first time. You won't either.