Generation Zero
Tips & Notes 
HyperTextHero Generation Zero videos originally streamed on Twitch:
The last thing you remembered before the new reality was a summer boat trip to an island with your friends and a girl you had a crush on. It was the end of the decade, the Berlin Wall had fallen, and all seemed, just like, awesome.
You were convinced that she was from Los Angeles, but having only visited in another reality through Grand Theft Auto you had nevertheless watched enough films and listened to plenty of citizens to know the accent well.
But the girl with shining hair turned out not to be from the City of Angels, but from Sweden, and to have watched a lot of American television, just like you.
And just like you, she would have liked Generation Zero’s character creation screen.
Like nordic countries (or L.A.) you can be a jock who wears skirts and paints his nails, or a punk feminist geek Slayer fan without fear of repression, ready to fight with both guns and fashion those with machine minds who know only their way or the highway to Gothenburg.
Having recently made up for never experiencing Saved by the Bell by watching the lovely Lady Bird may make one think you are a screen entertainment snob, but what if I tell you my screen time in the 80’s was divided between video games and action movies like Stallone Cobra (I can’t call the film “Cobra” — it must be “Stallone Cobra”), and that the first three Rambos are in my top ten list of films?
Maybe then you will understand that having saved me in the real world before, Rambo, or Cobra, are usually the personae I choose to control in virtual worlds.
In Generation Zero you find yourself alone (like Cobra) or together with up to three other friends and maybe even your crush in cooperative multiplayer, not on Venice Beach, but in a Swedish countryside with changing time and weather where roving mechanical dogs with guns and other robominations roam to terminate a cool high-school you.
Your imaginary back aches from the amount of gas canisters, stereo ghetto blasters, flares, .32 millimeter rounds and other bits and pieces, including weapon attachments like scopes and extended ammunition magazines that you have stuffed in your rad leather jacket pockets. (The user interface is a bit fiddly, but has improved with recent game updates).
Like an arctic fox you listen for sounds not made by nature in the wind by forests and sea and wish Adriene and Benji would row in sporting Fjallravens to help you. (There is an expansion, or “DLC” — downloadable content created for an already released video game — that adds human non-player characters — NPCs — and many updates that have added to and improved the game significantly since its original release).
Character creation and fashion options like new clothes found around the world as you progress (my Cobra has green sown mittens to keep his guns warm, for example) are nice, but this video game has other stars:
Ett: An ambience made real with excellent sound, graphics and world design that envelop you in a nordic landscape which you can reach quickly (very fast load times to get from the main menu to the 3D world). The soundtrack, too, must be celebrated as it is some sort of 1980s cross between Terminator, Airwolf and Iron Maiden.
Två: Movement animation and design of the machines that hunt you as if programmed by Boston Dynamics to kill ALL humans and not just the ones they are told are bad by the politicians in charge. From nimble “Runners” to Scandinavian-house-shaking “Tanks” the things have armor and weak points like battery packs and fuel tanks, so studying them from afar, ideally with binoculars equipped with the “Tech View” perk you get from the hacker skill tree, is not only worthwhile, but often crucial, especially in the default or higher difficulty settings (thankfully players of all skill levels can now enjoy the game with a recent update providing less punishing difficulty).
Tre: Derelict, dirty weapons that together with the visual and aural experiences remind you of Far Cry 2. Firing one emits a very loud BOOM (unless you have a silencer equipped), and sounds like a big deal, which it usually is since unless you hit a critical spot in one of the robots with your first shot you can expect a frightening fight ahead. The mech nightmares move quickly and will not hesitate to use their iron limbs as well as metal-jacketed bullets to put a hole in your totally cool avatar.
I should probably add Fyra: Though I find this game is most intense when experienced slowly and alone, the ability to play the game with three other friends cooperatively against the machines is fun and very, very helpful once robo-mechs are raging.
A few problematics, briefly: Machine artificial intelligence can be too quick to find out exactly where you are even if you take care to hit them from far away while crouched and using a silencer. In my imagination this is due to their advanced sensors, but it can be frustrating — and they sometimes stay stuck in one spot firing at you repeatedly, which becomes the opposite problem of them becoming too easy to blow up. A recent patch which changed line-of-sight mechanics of the machines may have improved this, though I have not tested it yet.
Bunkers can be repetitive and somewhat confusing to navigate, and the poison gas-filled parts are not fun but can be made manageable if you equip a gas mask.
The game crashes to desktop a bit too often, though much less than when it was released. I don’t remember the last time it happened.
Generation Zero is not playable cross-platform between systems like Xbox and PC so you can only play with others who have the same system as you.
More variety in footstep sounds, and the ability to lie prone to better avoid machine detection (done now, thanks!) would be lovely, as would a key to turn off all interface elements so you can fully immerse in the game world without distractions and without needing to stop the game to go into Photo Mode, if you choose.
Cobra eventually left the initial island after slowly, then very quickly moving north, from where the wind brought strange sounds from within the fog-covered distances.
The latter stages of his adventure in Sweden gave preference for powerful weaponry and less space for MacGyver-like ways of felling larger robo-foes, which took away from the whole.
But still, what a trip.
A full moon rises from behind the clouds, and as you stop to scan the space between the trees in the forest you notice the silver light glinting off the bookish girl’s hair beside you.
Her rifle seems incongruous with her outfit, but given the situation, it is a perfect fit.
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Tips
Go prone to avoid detection (Z).
Destroy Relay Beacons for plenty of XP and, most importantly, field radios that you can deploy and use to respawn and fast travel to.
Blue sparks from shot enemies mean they are getting damaged. Yellow sparks means they’re not feeling your fire that much, so change your aim point. It’s a good idea to aim at and destroy enemy weapons, especially on large enemies. Enemies have weakpoints, like the little red gas canisters on the back of the “Runner” mechanical dogs.
To destroy big enemies or groups of enemies, consider attracting them to explosive things like cars and silver electrical boxes by houses, then blowing those up, perhaps by leaving a gas canister and deploying a boom box ghetto blaster stereo system and moving away to a hiding spot with a good view of the above.
Sticky flares thrown and stuck to enemies make others shoot them. Get sticky flares from wood and trees. Regular flares attract enemies which will ignore you for around 10 seconds.
EMP and fireworks will disable or distract enemies.
Store crafting materials in the recycling bench to free up lots of weight.
Run away from fights and hide to heal and reload when in trouble. Houses are good hiding places. Then circle around and hit the robots again from a different direction.
List of Generation Zero missions borrowed from the GZ forum.
Base Game
1 Break of Dawn (Intro Mission)
2 Sanctuary (Intro Mission)
3 The Farm (Intro Mission)
4 The Road to Salthamn (Intro Mission)
5 Civil Defense
6 The Home Team (Warboard, Archipelago)
7 Calling for Help (Archipelago)
8 Over and Out (Archipelago)
9 First Contact (Archipelago)
10 Beachhead (Archipelago)
11 Another Castle (Archipelago)
12 Warboard - Minken Bunker (Warboard, South Coast)
13 Spiking the Guns (South Coast)
14 The Girl Who Cried Wolf (South Coast)
15 Warboard - Sorken Bunker (Warboard, Farmlands)
16 Refueling (Farmlands)
17 Flying Blind (Farmlands)
18 Warboard - Mården Bunker (Warboard, Forest)
19 Courage, Power and Resilience (Forest)
20 Flying Objects (Forest)
21 The Gas Factory (Forest)
22 Warboard - Utten Bunker (Warboard, Mountains)
23 Lost and Found (Mountains)
24 Back on Track (Mountains)
25 Radio Silence (Mountains)
26 Warboard - Skvadern Bunker (Warboard, Marshlands)
27 Line of Fire (Marshlands)
28 The Bridge (Marshlands)
29 The Old Guard (Marshlands)
30 Warboard - Hermelinen Bunker (Warboard, North Coast)
31 Loud and Clear (North Coast)
32 Science of Deduction (North Coast)
33 The Command Bunker Network (Warboard, Östertörn)
34 The Enemy of My Enemy (Marshlands, Final Four)
35 Empty Spaces (Forest, Final Four)
36 A Wrench in the Works (Mountains, Final Four)
37 Behind the Curtain (Warboard, North Coast, Finale)
Alpine Unrest and FNIX Rising DLCs
1 Not Alone (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
2 For the Sick and the Injured (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
3 Make Some Noise (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
4 Arms Race (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
5 Nothing but the Snow (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
6 Fighting the Cold (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
7 The Hellmouth (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
8 Ghosts of the Past (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
9 The Resistance (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll, Finale)
10 Where the Sun Sets (FNIX Rising, Archipelago)
11 The Ringfort (FNIX Rising, Archipelago)
12 Tidal Wave (FNIX Rising, Farmlands)
13 Piece by Piece (FNIX Rising, Farmlands)
14 Test Run (FNIX Rising, Farmlands)
15 Clearing the Path (FNIX Rising, Farmlands)
16 On the Side of the Road (FNIX Rising, South Coast)
17 Wages of Fear (FNIX Rising, South Coast)
18 New Cycles (FNIX Rising, South Coast)
19 Good Night (FNIX Rising, South Coast, Finale)
Side Missions
1 Old Bettan (Archipelago)
2 The Hunter (Archipelago)
3 One Can Only Hope (Archipelago)
4 Shooting Practice (Archipelago)
5 Unbearable Lightness (Archipelago)
6 Road Rage (Archipelago)
7 The Path of the Gods (Archipelago)
8 Strength in Numbers (Archipelago)
9 Seeds of Doubt (South Coast)
10 Treasurer Hunt (South Coast)
11 Beyond the Barricade (South Coast)
12 At Death’s Door (South Coast)
13 Safe Harbor (South Coast)
14 No Rest for the Weary (South Coast)
15 Secret Cargo (South Coast)
16 The Fallen (South Coast)
17 To the Lighthouse (South Coast)
18 Hogging Supplies (Farmlands)
19 Of Machines and Men (Farmlands)
20 Total Defense (Farmlands)
21 On the Road (Farmlands)
22 Stealing from the Poor (Farmlands)
23 Lone Wolf (Farmlands)
24 Colonists (Farmlands)
25 Law of the Land (Farmlands)
26 Hazardous Contents (Forest)
27 Exchange Student (Forest)
28 Scrap Metal (Forest)
29 Woodcutter (Forest)
30 Tilting at Windmills (Forest)
31 Supply Run (Mountains)
32 The Gun Club (Mountains)
33 Out Hiking (Mountains)
34 Top of the World (Mountains)
35 Prospect Tunnel (Mountains)
36 Zero Hour (Mountains)
37 Contraband (Marshlands)
38 Special Delivery (Marshlands)
39 Gas Run (Marshlands)
40 Last Stand (Marshlands)
41 Emergency Supplies (Marshlands)
42 A Place to Rest (Marshlands)
43 The Spotter (North Coast)
44 History Repeats Itself (North Coast)
45 Troll Toll (North Coast)
46 Left Behind (North Coast)
47 The Ruin of Many a Poor Man (North Coast)
48 Heavy Loadout (North Coast)
49 Father and Son (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
50 A Light in the Dark (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
51 Unfinished Investigation (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
52 Last Resort (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
53 The Response (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
54 Normal Lives (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
55 Capitulation (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
56 Stalemate (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
57 Behind Closed Doors (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
58 The Secluded (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
59 Unorthodox Skiing (Alpine Unrest, Himfjäll)
60 Never Trust Anyone (FNIX Rising, Farmlands)
61 In the Face of Adversity (FNIX Rising, Farmlands)
62 Summer Vacation (FNIX Rising, Farmlands)
63 We Are the Resistance (FNIX Rising, South Coast)
64 Fighting the Future (FNIX Rising, South Coast)
65 The Hatches (FNIX Rising, South Coast)
66 Energy Independence (FNIX Rising, South Coast)
67 Synapses (FNIX Rising, South Coast)
68 Fuel to the Fire (FNIX Rising, South Coast)
69 The Virus (FNIX Rising, South Coast)
70 Good News (Base Defense, Forest)
71 Foreign Machines (Soviet Storyline, Marshlands)
72 One Last Excursion (Soviet Storyline, Marshlands)
73 MIA: Our New Home (Base Defense, Forest)
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Generation Zero is available for PCs on Steam and for Xbox and Playstation 4.
If you like the game as much as I do, you should consider getting a print of one of Simon Stålenhag’s paintings.
Enjoyed this article? Come visit my stream and type on chat at https://twitch.tv/hypertexthero <3
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Possibly Related:
- Generation Zero 6 - Radio on Knee
- Relisten
- Jordan Mechner's 20 Tips on Making Games (PDF)
- Noclip
- Jfxr
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