Deadside is an open-world multiplayer survival shooter filled with a wide variety of locations and opportunity. Deadside is currently in early access and has had one of the best starts for a survival game that I have seen with a great deal of potential in its future.
In Deadside, you spawn in a random location somewhere on its vast map with nothing more than a knife, pants and a lighter. From there, you can try to loot nearby towns or military bases for items to help you survive before you run into either other players or one of many AI patrols scattered about the map carrying gear varying from low-tier weapons and items to military bots. Or you can run about with your knife trying to stab people and steal their loot; the knife is relatively OP, as it does 80 damage out of a character’s 100 health.
Deadside has a building mechanic with, for the most part, no collision boundaries, meaning it can clip into walls and the ground. The building is very grindy, as it needs certain items like an axe, saw, hammer and nails, which can all be bought at a safe zone or found around the map, but it also takes quite a while to gather the wood and craft up your base afterwards. Currently, there is no way of raiding other players’ bases in the game, but the developers are planning to add this in the near future. They do not want people to be able to raid bases while the base owners are offline, as they see this as passive gameplay and don’t like it.
The game has missions at certain locations around the map which, if completed, will grant you loot levelled to the mission. The mission difficulties are easy, medium, hard and epic. During these missions, you will have to go to a particular location and eliminate all AI in the area, and a higher mission difficulty means the AI is greater in number, possess better gear, and deal more damage, but the mission loot will consist of higher level gear and a good amount of money (usable at safe zones), though you’ll also have to deal with any other players who want the loot to themselves.
The current map has two safe zones at each side of the map, and you cannot take or deal damage for 200 meters around them. At the centre of these zones are two traders; one will buy and sell items like bandages, food and other misc items, and the other trader will buy and sell weapons, ammo, clothing and body armour. At the safe zones, you will also find storage for securing items and money to avoid running the risk of losing them out in the field.
Deadside has voice chat and group features. You can talk to anyone around the area by pushing the push-to-talk button. This can make for some unlikely friendships on the battlefield, random group-ups to take on difficult missions or just funny moments. You can combine these two features to talk to someone, befriend them and add them to a group that disbands once you die, or you can befriend them and shoot them in the back once they turn around and be the loot goblin you know you are.
The developers do well on updates and have put in a lot of work to fix the most needed stuff in the game like anti-cheat and optimisation, Bad Pixel, the developers, seem to have a good plan and a grip on how to make the game enjoyable. It combines aspects of many other games and has quite an enjoyable variety. I, for one, can’t wait to see what the future of this game becomes and have already poured many hours into the game. It is my newest gaming addiction.
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This was our review on the early access version of Deadside. You can stay up-to-date with development on the game by following the developers on Twitter. Did you enjoy this review? Take a look at the review section of our site.