Gray Zone Warfare's first big update is coming and it feels like a game-changer
Remember Gray Zone Warfare? Currently just 1,500 people are playing the extraction shooter, which launched in April with huge fanfare, with it having the benefit of being an extraction shooter coming onto the market just after Escape From Tarkov had shat the bed.
This is quite a tumble from the game's respectable all-time peak of 72,548, back in May. There were a stack of potential reasons for this: aimbot AI sniping players, server issues, weird rubberbanding. All of these were negative newsbeats, but the reason I think the game has gotten quiet is a simple one: The core loop at the heart of Gray Zone Warfare isn't compelling, so you quickly run out of stuff to actually do.
Still, the game has promise. The firefights are tense and the urban combat is satisfying. I just had the feeling that the game isn't quite there yet. Still, I was happy to sit down at Gamescom with Rick Lagnese, the PR & Comms Director at Madfinger Games to see a little of the new build, and talk about what's next for Gray Zone Warfare, and I've come away excited.
No extraction shooter launches with a full audience, and it seems like the team at Madfinger Games have plans not just to add some much requested features to the game, but also a clear idea of where they want to be. Lagnese is bullish but open during our chat, and says, bluntly, that he and the team at Madfinger aren't worried about the calls of "dead game" that they get because "we're going to be here for years, whether people like it or not."
He's also honest about where the game currently is. "There aren't many incentives to come back, in fact there aren't any at all," admits Lagnese, "but we're working on it."
The biggest news is that the Night Ops update, the game's first major content drop, will launch with a wipe resetting everyone from scratch. This is expected: Escape From Tarkov wipes twice a year and Lagnese says that the team expect to hit a similar cadence, with two wipes dropping each year.
The wipe is necessary because the team at Madfinger plan to tweak everything, whether that's the game's progression, the way vendors work or even some of the individual quests. The game's economy is going to get the biggest change here because Gray Zone Warfare is adding loot to the game, letting players squabble over rare items. This should create a way to make a big amount of money quickly for people willing to take risks. At the moment, Gray Zone Warfare is largely just about picking up food, drink, weapons and tactical gear, so this should mix the gameplay up run to run. If nothing else, the pulse-pounding feeling of having a bag full of high tier loot should amp things up. To make managing your inventory easier with all of that new stuff, filters and other tweaks will be coming too.
All of this should introduce the concept of gear fear, which Tarkov veterans will feel familiar with. Gear fear is the label the extraction shooter community has come up with to describe the fear of dying and losing all of your stuff, but for many it goes just beyond regret at losing great gear—it becomes something that can shape the way you play. After all, if you're fighting with the best M4 you can pull together on very limited resources, would you try to protect it even at the expense of running away from a fight, or even dipping on your friends? Lagnese says that trying to inspire gear fear and offer up a more hardcore experience was a core part of the design when shifting up the game's economy with loot.
Not that you'll want to stop picking up fresh gear entirely. The Night Ops update will also come with the addition of the MP5 submachine gun, which should rip in Gray Zone Warfare's many, many close-range gunfights. While they didn't show many off, Madfinger has said that the MP5 will have a collection of attachments at launch. The update will also come with more additions to the armoury, but Madfinger says it will reveal more soon.
The most noticeable addition is, of course, the day/night cycle. Gray Zone Warfare's use of Unreal Engine 5 means the forests are terrifying at night, as the canopy blocks out nearly all light. My demo is in real time, and as soon as you step from the fields into the deep forest itself, you can barely see inches in front of your face. Flashlights, laser pointers and night-vision goggles are coming to the game to counteract this, but the reality is that being out at night is going to feel very different, and skulking around in the dark forests will be unique to patrolling in a moonlit field.
Flashlights are, obviously, going to be a shiny beacon for people to attack, but the night vision goggles look pleasingly difficult. The night optics I'm shown are a single monocular giving you just a small bit of vision. You still have some peripheral vision, just without the ability to see a great deal of anything. Things look fuzzy, and it makes the nighttime appear terrifying when I can't get a clear visual identifier. I'm not even playing, and I'm on edge.
Madfinger is billing the night time as an entirely different world, promising that AI will be less active and often sleeping while a single person stands guard, reluctant to patrol the dark forests themselves. Lower tier enemies will have a flashlight on their vest, giving them away at a distance. This is part of a bigger rebalance of how AI works, and Lagnese mentions that a full rebalance is coming. They should feel more like people and less like juggernauts taking you down at 200 metres.
This could create a sense of safety, but it's a false sense as there's a good chance that players will, again, be meeting at hotspots to do battle for the best gear and loot. High-tier NPC enemies will also have night-vision goggles, which provides a ready source for bold players, but will no doubt make them more challenging. Day and night length is still being tweaked, I'm told, but you can expect the cycle to last several hours. Hardened players will likely lay in ambush, particularly next to helicopter landing sites.
Gray Zone Warfare already has a bit of a reputation for realism—ask any one of the players who's been killed instantly by a bullet to the heart—but they seem to be trying to outdo themselves here. While the Democratic Republic of Lamang where the game takes place is fictional, the team has looked at the constellations and how they would appear in the area of Southeast Asia where Lamang should be, and are claiming, with deserved pride, that players will be able to navigate by those stars. If, you know, they're not too busy shooting each other.
The jungle itself is also getting a mix up. Plenty of bunkers and structures from a former Japanese occupation of the island now exist in the woodland and are covered in graffiti. It feels surprisingly lived in, full of details I'll never take in mid firefight. That's not the only thing getting a touch-up on the map, as I'm told most of the points of interest and villages will have more enterable buildings and will look completely different at night because of the lighting.
It's a raft of new stuff, but the most energising thing for me is what a clear vision the team at Madfinger seem to have about what their game actually is. I'm told they don't really like the Tarkov comparisons because they don't see themselves as an extraction shooter, with Lagnese adding: "You're never leaving the match."
I'd disagree here, if it walks like an extraction shooter and quacks like an extraction shooter, that's what it is. But, I do think the area Gray Zone Warfare is exploring is closer in DNA to Ghost Recon or Arma 3 than Tarkov or Arena Breakout: Infinite. You can see this also in the idea of outposts, a longer term idea that Lagnese said could be coming in the next update but might be something the team looks at for the future. Outposts will be neutral areas that can be taken over by each of the three competing factions in the game, or even one of the AI groups of enemies. When taken it'll be a safe haven for the group, allowing gear to be stashed and a respite to be found. Providing it isn't being attacked by another group keen to get those benefits for themselves.
There's no denying that Gray Zone Warfare is quiet right now, but with the amount the team is talking about, I'm confident they're going to make a game that certain players dig. I'm reminded somewhat of 10 Chambers, the Swedish studio behind GTFO and the forthcoming Den of Wolves, who make the games they want to play and trust that players that dig that will fall in line behind them.
They're standing alongside that community too. Lagnese repeatedly mentions that every player suggestion is kept track of and discussed in a weekly meeting. He says that players are often in line with the developers and several suggestions are things that are already mapped out on paper or being discussed internally, but that it's important for the team to "take temperature" on the issues the community is passionate about.
Madfinger Games know that they want to make one of the most realistic military shooters out there, even if they find the extraction shooter label contentious. I'm curious to follow along and see how that goes for them.