Endzone 2, A Humble Review

The post-apocalypse is a time when gamers will shine in all their glory and become a crucial factor in the survival of the human species, so cometh Endzone 2! With all the different scenarios - from zombies to fungal infections to nuclear war - there's nothing that would surprise us gamers, and we'd know how to handle any situation.

If we need to shoot, we'll shoot; if we need to assemble some motorcycle or a rusty VW Beetle with spikes, it's not a problem. And it's not a problem to grow cabbage and bake bricks in a colony sim/city builder genre, whatever you want to call it.

If you like to play something completely different, check out our Achilles Survivor review!

Endzone 2's Core Mechanics

Endzone 2 is a game where you manage a small group of survivors who, after a nuclear disaster, finally emerge from an underground bunker with dreams of living in the fresh air. Like its predecessor, it's not a particularly well-known series, which gained attention through the early access program, where it spent 11 months.

Like any other title in this genre, you start the game by trying to secure vital resources for your colonizers, i.e., exploiting some water source, food, and building some shelter. Then, you focus on basic industry, which in this case involves collecting and processing a large amount of waste. Once you've taken the first step by developing new knowledge, you'll be able to utilize more advanced resources, which will help grow your industrial empire. However, you can't build your settlements just anywhere; you can only build on plateaus of different sizes that you stumble upon while driving through the radioactive wasteland.

You reach new locations with vehicles that you can later produce yourself, and at the beginning of the game, your means of transportation will be a very reliable yellow bus. Without this bus, there's no progress, because you gain knowledge by exploring the wasteland, and this segment is the best part of the game for me. 

The map is full of various locations of interest, and while some you can loot from a drop-down menu, others you explore more thoroughly through so-called expeditions. At that moment, you control one of your colonizers and personally rummage through every container, abandoned car, or hard-to-reach place that requires a special tool.

The Complexity of Survival 

Namely, apart from the resource capacity that your vehicle can carry, there's also a capacity for equipment that you can take with you, which you'll need in exceptional cases (axe, generator, ladder, machine gun...), so apart from micromanaging settlements, you need to strategize when plundering the surroundings. These locations are reasonably diverse, and you always get excited about a good catch. Successful exploration yields knowledge, in the form of experience points, which you use to unlock new technologies. 

The refinement of this segment of the game, as well as the inclusion of drivable vehicles and multiple habitable zones (the plateaus above), are new features compared to the previous Endzone game.

The amount of exploitable resources is truly enormous: you fill up on water, food (either by collecting forest fruits or hunting animals), wood, coal, clay, plant fibres, and waste. Then you produce bricks, medicine, tools, protective clothing, and even paper, so your schools can function. At the same time, you need to watch out for hunger, thirst, and radiation levels, which naturally affect health. There's a lot to keep track of, so managing larger settlements and a larger number of them is demanding.

Keep in mind that you're not in a perfect environment, so elemental disasters like acid rain will test you further. These rains not only increase the chance of an outbreak that can disrupt your settlement but also permanently pollute the environment, as the percentage of radioactivity (which varies from place to place) increases. Hence, you need to find a way to decontaminate such places. If the radiation percentage increases in the lake you're using to supply your population, they'll get sick, regardless of whether you've taken care to build houses in places where radiation isn't significant.

A Disappointing Tutorial Experience

For some reason, the tutorial is much longer than expected and doesn't do much to interest you in the game, and that's where you'll notice a severely lacking attempt at storytelling. There's no real campaign with a concrete plot, characters, and dialogue. You'll often receive some guidance, which is to be expected in a tutorial. Still, it's presented as dialogue and monologues of certain nameless characters, which were likely created using AI tools. 

Or the actors are catastrophic... Even the images of these characters seem generic.

I suggest that immediately after grasping the basic directions, you switch to the sandbox mode of the game, where you create your own "story" and make decisions. There, you can naturally set the general difficulty level (five levels are offered) or go into more detail and choose some arbitrary difficulty. 

The medium option provides a decent level of challenge, but for the brave, there are more difficult options. Apart from difficulty, you can set the map size, which naturally dictates the length of the game. If you want to build an entire state, Endzone 2 can be quite a lengthy game. There's also a third option, Scenarios, which isn't particularly interesting, and where you have specific challenges through several scenarios.

To expand to more zones, you'll need to trade between them at some point. You can, of course, do this trade manually, but fortunately, there's an option to define trade routes that your vehicle will follow constantly.

Encountering the Wasteland's Inhabitants In Endzone 2

Exploring the radioactive wasteland, you can stumble upon special objects like Rusty Rolpha's warehouse, a character who's always willing to offer you a weekly action, and by doing small services for him, he might provide you with a discount. 

Apart from the benevolent Rolpha, you can discover a bandit hideout that will disrupt your trade and exploration. It's certainly positive that these bandits exist, but it's a shame they're not more developed. I didn't experience a situation where a bandit faction would blackmail me or directly attack my cities, which used to happen in the predecessor.

I didn't experience a situation where a bandit faction would blackmail me or directly attack my cities, which used to happen in the predecessor.

To defeat the bandits, you need to equip your vehicles with weapons that you discover through previous research, and in settlements, you can build a workshop where you repair them or expand your arsenal of deadly cars. The battles themselves aren't spectacular compared to similar games, but it's great that this aspect is included in the game.

Earlier, I mentioned that, in addition to workshops, you have the option to build schools. These schools are essential for educating the population, and specifically, you're offered options on the type of education the students will receive. If you choose general education, every industry, including the one behind the well, will receive a particular production bonus. If you choose something specific, like engineering, you'll be able to perform special repairs in the wasteland, like fixing bridges and similar. Objects also receive production bonuses from other factors, such as access to a path leading to the settlement centre or proximity to a warehouse.

The World of Endzone 2

Fans of the first part aren't happy with specific changes in the sequel, like the forced expansion to other zones, because no single zone has all the resources needed to run a large city. This complicates gameplay, but it's not an unreasonable change, as it adds to the realism and forces you to explore the surroundings through interesting expeditions. A more relevant minus is that the dealings and relationships with bandits were more interesting and grandiose in the previous game.

Ultimately, I'd like to address the audiovisual/technical aspects. As for sound, in Endzone 2, it's not memorable in any way, despite having our XP-Panther Sand headset on, and the voice acting is, for all the wrong reasons. Visually, the game looks decent, but it can sometimes appear overly aggressive. The colours are pretty saturated, and with the presence of a large number of various waste pieces and blades of grass, you get the feeling that your eyes are working "overtime".

The world is beautifully modelled, fortunately, and although there's no concrete narrative side, you get the feeling that the picture tells more than a thousand words. You see numerous remains of once-populated cities, where there aren't many identical objects, and specific locations can bring a smile to your face. All this without a single game crash.

In Conclusion

Endzone 2 is a solid city builder title that tries to expand its horizons and boundaries, and in doing so, it might alienate some old fans of this genre. On the other hand, new players can expect a fresh approach to the premise of survival in a post-apocalyptic world, with all the elements that make a detailed and challenging title in this genre. You have a lot of work once you start handling numerous materials, which might be tiring for some. 

However, the expeditions where you discover secrets of fascinating ruins will keep you interested as soon as you find a specific tool or material that can advance your civilization. The scenes of the wasteland are exciting and tell their own story, even if there's no real narrative side, and your eyes might sometimes hurt from the overly emphasized colourfulness.

Rating: 7.5/10

The game earns this score because it offers a fresh take on the city builder genre with a post-apocalyptic setting, engaging gameplay mechanics, and interesting exploration elements. However, it's marred by a lacklustre tutorial, unimpressive voice acting, and some minor issues with visuals and bandit interactions.

Recommended age: 12+

I recommend this game to kids aged 12 and above because it involves complex gameplay mechanics, resource management, and strategic decision-making that might be challenging for younger players to grasp. Additionally, the post-apocalyptic setting and some elements of violence might not be suitable for younger audiences.