Infection Free Zone

Infection Free Zone is a neat game, I love the premise of being able to plant a colony anywhere in the world via map-generated play-zones, which was the entire reason I got the game originally. Sure, it still needs polish, but at the time of writing this it *is* still in Early Access, so that's entirely understandable, but leads to my next favorite thing about the game: It's active Devs. I encountered a bug that made my game incapable of progressing the main storyline. Distraught, I opened a thread in steam asking for help. Within around 48 hours, an actual Dev arrived with a bandage solution command to put in to make the story progress-able. It may not have been a bugfix, but naturally those come later on. The fact a dev showed up not only with a "oh, we'll work on fixing that bug soon", but instead an immediate solution to my problem, makes me happy to see devs caring so much for their playerbase. Shoutout to Rider, the dev who helped me <3

[h2] The game has a good premise, but still has a looong way to go. [/h2] [i] But that's obvious, that's why it's in early access right now [/i] - you will say. Well, yes and no. It is still an EARLY-early access. There were a few bugs, but nothing game-breaking. There is also a lack of balance, but both of these are to be expected from an early acces game. [b] HOWEVER, [/b] a lot of features and mechanics are severly lacking/missing, and not just in quality of life department. There is simply nothing to do after early game. I tried a 40-day run on hard difficulty. After early game i just qued orders once every couple of in-game days and could leave the game running without supervision with no issue. The only reason i needed to do anything at all during the night was because i refused to build walls or towers. So, unless you want to play AFK symulator, I recomend to wait a bit more untill the game is fleshed out more. It has a good premise and I hope it will be able to be deliver eventually, but right now it's hard to justify spending time, nor money on it. I might give it a shot again after some time and if things improve, the review will reflect that.

I like the Idea behind Infection Free Zone, though while playing it feels like I "HAVE" to do things constantly instead of "being able" to do something on my own volition. Instead of this being a sandbox Zombie aftermath survival town/city/defence Game it feels like it traps its own creativity with the way the building system works. I do like the system of repurposing Old actual real life buildings into other buildings, like HQ and Research Centers but I am constantly feeling limited by not being able to build my Own buildings for HQ and others. I do know that you can build your own buildings but this feels extremly limiting and not exactly fleshed out. This game, unintentionally of course, feels like the inbetween of a macro city builder and a strategy unit/defence builder. It feels too personal and constraint with the buildings, People. units and Resources that it is limiting the freedom one usually has in sandbox building games while also being a little, and truly just a little, overwhelming and bare for a strategy defence game: building options are limited to actual already existing buildings on the map, resources dependend on those limiting options and Squads, Constant manual movement of Squads, realistic urban/rural regions, realistic available time for NPC builders/farmers/scavangers/etc. to do their jobs, realistic aviable options for Population increase. Now some of those points are not to say bad but the combind points make this Game: Hard, Boring, Unervingly Annoying, Irritating Constant Vigilance/attention on Squads/resource gathering, Unapealing UI/Camera View/World texture/Unit texture. The viewing of the Map most definitely needs to be better aka: Being able to tilt the camera being more than a "birds eye view", not "straight on" of course but atleast it sould be "slightly above" 10°-15°. # Obviously this game is in Early Access and I will be trying this game out again after it is fully released as I do like not only the genre of Zombie, Survival, City builder and Defence builder Game but also the the ability to chose your own starting point on the actual EARTH MAPS. I do hope that the "game" gets polished and refined into something that can stand on its own without this new novel Idea of using the Earth Maps and actual real life buildings, only then could I recommend this Game. For now its more like extremly bonedry survival game with a false Sandbox tag.

Honestly, this game is a good idea. I like where the game is headed and the mechanics and all that, and it's not a bad price. However, that being said, I would recommend that someone wanting a post-Apocalypse setting to wait for this one to go on sale or wait for it to come out of early access. I love the idea of this game, but the UI is not quite polished up to where I would like it, but that's just me. It is examples like these that I really would like to have a somewhere in between in the thumbs up and thumbs down. Again, just to restate, this is NOT a bad game, but it needs some polishing before it can become a really good game.

I rarely leave reviews, but this game truly deserves one. For the price, it offers an experience that's absolutely worth it. The gameplay is engaging, the story is captivating, and the overall quality feels far beyond what you'd expect at this price point. If you're looking for a game that's both affordable and genuinely enjoyable, this one is definitely worth checking out.

awesome game but can you add not zombie animals so you can tame dogs and put weapons on them

After a response from the Dev, I decided to give the game another playthrough and to make some notes. - No story mode: This massively helped, transmissions became less frequent, which is a positive, I would love some sort of middle ground where you could turn off every transmission that isn't directly progressing the story? - Worker carry limits: I assumed I maybe just hadn't proceeded far enough into the story, but it seems as if workers can and will always carry one unit. There should be a research upgrade or building that creates backpacks/carts/something pretty early on, bumping up say the ability to take 1 item to a building site/1 item from a deconstruction site, to say, 3/5/7 with different tiers of backpacks. As soon as you try to destroy any building that has say 500+ materials, you're going to be waiting in game weeks for anything meaningful to happen, I started a deconstruction with 20 people assigned 3 in game weeks ago, this feels pretty bad. - Additional QoL toggles: If my base is surrounded by walls, I'd like to think I could have a night shift of workers, maybe working at 50% capacity? But the day light hours for your workers again just feels too short. A toggle to allow buildings to continue to output overnight would be great. A toggle to also increase worker speed/carry capacity would be fun. - Ability to filter which transmissions pause the game: After your 10th group of visitors who are either, friendly with good skills/arms or overly aggressive with zombie bites on them, you'd like to think we could automate "Allow those without aggressive tendencies in". Similarly, the trader while cool, can probably just sit outside the base for 24 in game hrs and if I don't click on them, too bad. Again, I respect the developers time and effort, I somewhat enjoyed the latest no story playthrough, this game has a lot of potential and I'm very glad to see the developer respond so quickly, I hope the above, with the main one being worker carry capacity being addressed asap and the games chores will be greatly diminshed.

Fun and hard love the workshop addition. Games is in beta or early access one of the two at the time of this review.

A game with good promise, but some things to work out still. My first issue is that if you choose an area like an island or castle with natural defences like water or walls, enemies can still spawn in that area despite being searched and scavenged. I understand that happening for open areas that enemies could migrate to. But this is as if the zombies can either teleport or just form out of nowhere. Another issue is with some ui bugs and that trying to click on a squad for example will just shoot your camera off it's location and go to a quest. I'll also mention is that while I think the building is decent, but at times you'll have to disable snap as it just won't be able to attach a wall the normal way for whatever reason. Lastly, the auto equip feature needs to have a toggle. I don't want my scavengers being slowed down because they always equip armor that slows them. Overall it's still a good game, but you can notice areas where it's in development.

It make Laptop grill a Medium-Rare steak. Even this is Early Access Game, it still BAD optimize.

Uses AI art for character portraits. Systems are very basic RTS. The only unique aspect is the ability to pull real world maps.

Days are too short and there's not a lot of late game content but it's pretty good. id recommend it

Game was fun while it lasted but is now unplayable due to the game requiring space on a drive that it is not downloaded on. I downloaded it onto my D: drive that has tons of space but it wants space on my C: drive that I can't clear.

this game is very addicting and i have just started playing. i would love if in the future there was factions that would build near you that you could go to. for making allies or enemy's.

Wonderfully addictive. So enjoyable. SO MUCH POTENTIAL. I love this game and it just keeps gettin' better!

Really cool game. With some caveats: It is not easy to manage your squads. No drag to select multiple, every time you click on a squad it wants to center the camera on them, no shift-click multiple select, and you can't tell what squads are using a car easily without clicking on the squad...which recenters the map...which takes you away from what you were looking at or trying to do. Really breaks up your chain of thought. There are radio calls when squads are in combat, but *which* squad? Now I have to click through each of the squads to find out which one. Then I'm getting radio calls of other events, sometimes 2 events or more at a time. Which map marker goes to which event? I don't want to send a single squad to a raider hideout, I want to send 3 or 4, but now I have 3 map markers and I don't know what is what event. I'm getting "out of resources" but it isn't easy to tell *what* resource. I can't seem to figure out how much food I'm making and how much I need to make per day. Expeditions to outlying areas need to be babysit because they won't come back automatically when they're full. Base building is OK, but walls and fences don't snap easily together, or I'm doing something wrong. It only leaves small gaps but it's still kind of annoying. Having said all of that you *can* pause the game. You can pause it to micro-manage everything, to find the squads that use cars, then try to remember where you wanted to dispatch them to after the camera took you all over the place. All in all, I really do like the game. But the level of micromanagement needed even seven hours in is incredible. Some quality of life automation is needed, the ability to see a 'mounted' squad, drag-select of multiple squads, and a better base building experience. Knowing the food/water consumption per day is critical. I'm missing lots of controls that I'm used to having in colony games, or maybe I just don't know where they are (which is a UI problem, a player should not have to search for this kind of info. There is a listing of food and other items at the top of the screen but it is not informative enough). All of that being said, if they can fix these quality of life issues, especially the issues with the camera constantly recentering--I don't *want* the camera to move automatically, I want a button to select a unit, and a button to center on the unit. A listing of open events, and a way to automate the expeditions (return when full and go back, return when full and avoid or flee combat, sweep and clear and area then scavenge and return, things like this). I want also to automate the scavengers (prioritize [resource], avoid combat, etc). Of all of that...stop the camera moving around on its own, give me a button to center the camera on a unit or event. There are times I don't care (or I already know) where a unit is, I want to select the unit and give an order without the camera moving. After 7 hours, I finally rage quit because the camera constantly moving on me was too much and made the game that much more frustrating to play. And yes I'm *still* recommending this game. It just needs more time in the oven.

TLDR: Looks super promising, but defo needs more content. The World generation is okay, could use some polish tho, a.E. Trainstations are recognized as houses. Same goes for fixing some small bugs but thats it. Big recommend if you are into these kind of Management/Colony/Citybuilder/Tower defense type of Games!! I really like the Game so far, it combines some city builder, Colony manager and also a defend system from they are billions all in one. Really really like the Concept, the story is okay, not the focus but I still like it, its not annoying or thrown in, but kind of fits into the World. The only thing the is of course missing is content, since you will get through everything available really quickly. The World generation could use a bit of more accuracy, like recognizing trainstations but the scale it has same for its normal accuracy so far, is quite impressive. I didnt encounter any bugs so far, except zombies and people being able to run up elevations, like I spawned in the scottish castle, and the zombies just decided to attack a wall I could barely defend because of a building infront of it, and them being able to run up a cliff is kind of silly anyway. Else, PLEASE let me be able to buld on Train tracks and streets. Some streets and all train tracks I cant build on, nor can I destroy them... Else, defo a big recommend from me, I am actually very excited about the coming updates, this game looks really promising.

lots of fun, gets progressivsley more difficult as time passes.

Okay, let me get this out of the way. I enjoy this game, and most of it's mechanics. I like the looting, I like building up a safezone, and all the who say whats-itz. However, I really don't like that im currently dealing with a metric fuck ton of zombies, with backup that sits on the wrong side of the base until they feel like getting off their asses to do something. Also, fortified walls do jack shit, which is ridiculous.

I do like this game a lot, but it needs some work on optimization: crashed the computer sometimes even when nothing else but discord is running in the background. Other than that the game is shaping up to be great.

cool concept and easy to play, reminds me of, old command and conquer, but with a modern twist (zombies) play in your city, town or village... Still a work in progress...

really repetitive and nighttime is a boring slog,feels boring and kinda goaless

this game is pretty fun, it took me awhile to get into the groove of things, but once i got it figured out the game is super fun, and addictive

honestly a great game and its already come a long way since it came out in early access. I've been having a great time watching it grow and change. I love the new building system, I like how many new things have been added and the way its really expanded to let you build your safe zone how you want. at this current point I'd say its well worth its price.

Rating: Neutral. 3/5. The creativity and ideas are good, but you will get bored quickly when playing.especially when you have enough weapons. In addition, there are many places that go against common sense. Maybe it is for the entertainment of the game, but some places that are based on reality but too far away from reality will make me feel very uncomfortable, just like the serious Goof in the movie. Operations on buildings cannot be undone, even if the building has not changed, it is only marked for restoration or demolition, and the workers have not started the action. In this case, you can only wait until the workers have finished the construction before you can perform the correct operations or rebuild the building. I don't know now whether I should refund it or keep it.

Good game, but not buy now - no mid- to late- game contents and narratives, so there's less to no motivation to play it once again.

At this stage, in early access, I can safely say that the game is fun for the first couple of hours. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it for the first couple of hours, and the fact that I get to choose any location on the map is a definite plus. Feels awesome being able to defend your neighborhood from zombies. However, it loses some of its luster as you put in more hours into it due to lack of depth and content. Hopefully as they continue to develop it, it'll get even better. Some develops I hope to see moving forward: [list] [*]Better key-bindings and hotkeys (as someone who used to play a lot of RTS games, it's a bit jarring that I can't quickly pop open a menu). [*]Bug fixes on squads abandoning their vehicles all of a sudden [*]Selecting multiple squads at once [*]Skill trees & ability to level-up/customize squad members (similar to Rebuild 3) [*]Maybe a hero system an a bit of roleplay (similar to Rebuild 3)

Ain't too bad (i think it's pretty good, i enjoy the map but i wish i could expand out of the starting area instead of expeditions.)

Maps aren't 100% accurate but close enough to be quite fun as a concept. Played for the first time and 3 hours went by in a flash. Needs a bit more development but a promising game.

even this game is in beta its absolutely awesome and one a golden piece for its kind dont think twice to buy it

I very rarely buy early access games. But I tried it at a friends for short time and got hooked so bought it. Yes there is loads more to be added to the game while i write this review before it's ready for release, I look forward to what the devs are going to bring.

Cannot reccomend this game enough! still in development so expect bugs especially if you play the experemental version to get more features but the developers are awesome and there is a built in bug reportert tool there is plenty of community support and when it is finished the end product will be top tier of in the genre of city builder / survival games.

Great game, the devs really listen to the community and they are fixing stuff ASAP. There is still work to do to polish the game further, but it's nice to see all the new features and the upcoming ideas. BUTTTT I do hate one thing, the FUCKING "MR. PREPPER" I can't find him for the love of GOD !!!! He either hides really well or I'm just that unlucky with his spawn. Hardest achievement by far to get for me, sole survivor was easier then this dumbo XDDDD

Great game, active devs, unique premise, nice community. Needs some polishing in some areas but its in early access so thats just a matter of time. I love being able to set up a safezone anywhere, Its such a different concept that I haven't seen anywhere before. Great game. Keep it up devs! :)

This game is something I wish I could have played as a kid/teenager back when the idea of a zombie apocalypse was the thing young boys obsessed about. such an awesome idea, and great replayability value

I have spent many nights with joy playing this game. Would recommend for many reasons.. Why not check out for yourself what those reasons are ?

The Game is fun giving you a closely realistic type of experience giving you the oppurtunity to figure out the best stratagey to keep you home twon or city alive

Great game! Very addictive. Just wish there were more scenarios, and I mean like a hundred more.

expeditions are bad and half baked 50/50 of nothing being there or just getting immediately wiped, playable area is small, the gimmick is you can put in an address and it'll build a map based on where you live, or want to play (its bad, using the google maps overlay is flat so makes it look even worse and the playable area within it is tiny) typical 3 tier (wood, metal, reinforced) defense game with a HORRIBLE vaccine mechanic, lacking QoL heavily, crashes every 20 mins for me, autosave works half the time, either it works or it takes 20 minutes to save or it crashes, enemy and civilian AI is horrible, path tracing is horrible, spawning doesnt make sense, some times zombies or enemies just pop up, even if i have sentries looking over people coming back, just pop. out of 36 of these hours, 10 of them have been just trying to get back to where i was from it crashing. Its a less optimized, gimmicky, less goodlooking, clone of manor lords, with half the QoL and uses a gimmick to keep it alive. Stop ruining games with early access, manage you companies money, and release a quailty fucking product for once

This game gives you some survival instinct about end of world thru zombies. This shows me ideas if this really happen in the future, i would and could do something to survive.

Bought game because there is option to just play anywhere on map. So I picked my neighborhood in east Europe. Yep it totally works. Street names, buildings with business are taken from map. It was fun navigating familiar streets and ACTUALLY knowing where shops and schools are for resources. Super immersive. Not sure what endgame still has but feeling definitely delivered.

I've really enjoyed it. Devs are very responsive, updates keep rolling out, and a lot of the complaints from older reviews about features and stuff have been already fixed or added into the game. You'll know within 2 hours if you're going to love the game or not, so why not give it a shot. I look forward to seeing where this game goes.

I love this game, but.... you beter know what it is, and what it is not. Else, you could end up realy deceipted. The good, and more than good, amazing feature of the game is that it's working on real world map. I didn't realize how this is cool just reading the comments before I play it myself. And I was close to drop it away, not giving a try. Thanks Steam solid refund system... Why is it so good ? Because you can build your bunker in places you know. You can set it where you live, you can use your grand'ma's house as QG, you can pick up your holidays favorite place... everywhere on the world, cities, towns, villages and contryside, is avalable to be your playground. That's make it another game experience. Beside that, it's a weak game. Or even a no good game. I plenly understand and approve those who say that game doesn't worth the price. Indeed, it doesn't even worth the trouble. Don't install it on your computer, if it's not that real world map. I'm not fan of zombies, but I'm convince there are a lot of beter zombies games out there. If you see it as a Rimworld like game, then it's a realy bad one. Or as a city/bunker builder, but then again it's no good. Why ? User interface is bad, graphics are weak, mechanics are cheap and short, game is buggy like hell.... forget it. Just, forget it. But, if you accept all of that, it worth the trouble. Definitly. NoirDelire

When I first saw this game, I bought it having played the prologue version. And I must say I am very please. I am at the moment having a hard time with the population growth, (at the moment of this review, my third zone has almost 800 citizens at the moment, it is under control) It gets really hard to manage the population after 500 citizens. After that, you have problems preventing the people from dying of food shortages. It is possible to combat this issue by building more houses, farms, and cannery.) One problem that has irritated me though is that randomly, some of the squads lose a member for no reason at all. The squad could be in a building for a long time and it can happen. (btw, It happens even when I have plenty of food, shelter, and the mood is high.) Another problem is that when I send that squad to the HQ to get a new squad member, If i had custom named the squad before (such as GHOST SQUAD), the squad finishes retraining and the name is now the default (SQUAD #). It really becomes a headache when you have a lot of squads. (at the moment of this review, my third zone has 21 squads) I have noticed that this problem happens when the total population is at 800. However, I admire the hard work of the developers for the constant updates and releasing a really great game. I like so many aspects of this game that I would be rambling if I were to list them here. I wish the developers a great career and success with Infection Free Zone. I would definitely recommend this to anyone that likes strategy and managing. Ps. I'll post a picture of the zone as proof of the claims made above. PPs. This is my third successful zone. My first successful zone lasted at least 40-60 days and was built after I had many other failed zones before it collapsed due to many factors. My second successful zone lasted much longer than the first zone to around 70 days and could of lasted longer, but I gave up after management became a nightmare because of a shortage of ammo, food, and wood. Now the third very successful zone has so far made it to 184 days, was made on normal to hard difficulty (I can't quite remember...), and was made after they fixed and added many VERY helpful updates that led to my goal of lasting at least 365 in game days becoming very much possible. PPPs. All these zones were and are on normal or hard difficulty. I consider the zone a success when it has passed 50 days. (Update.) One more note. I do NOT exploit the game as in using glitches that duplicate weapons, and I do not cheat the game. I play it as if it was a complete game with no bugs.

Really enjoyable, I've been having loads of fun. The map feature is amazing, I love that I can play in my neighbourhood specifically. Some of the maps/areas I thought would be really easy to play in became quite challenging, which was pretty awesome. The learning curve and strategy is so different from other similar games, and presents a unique challenge. I'm really keen to see how the game develops further, and if I can track down a suggestions box, I definitely have some things I'd like to see, though I would have considered my money well spent if the current version was the finished game. The story is fantastic too, but easy enough to put off if you want to just build and develop for a while first. Great game.

Fairly simple in it's gameplay and gameplay loop, but a fun little survival game, probably the best part is that you can pick pretty much anywhere on the globe you want and try to survive with your settlement there. There are some missions and a storyline, writing is OK but nothing stellar really. It's a fun little game all in all, I'd recommend it.

this game would also have potential for a pvp mode not gonna lie if u add more military vehicles this can get pretty crazy if pvp is added one day since we pretty much only can play solo even coop mode would be fun over all this game is fun and worth it still even tho in development

I really enjoyed the fact you can base anywhere in the world, although the place i chose, had a large number of the building simply missing, i assume this is a bug or a performance protection, but other than that 10/10 game

This dev has a good library of games that let you play anywhere on the map, and I'm looking forward to where Infection Free Zone goes. It's been enjoyable already, though! I established my HQ in my real world home and bulldozed most of the neighborhood, skipping the houses whose IRL occupants don't suck. I've completed a wall around my neighborhood, now, but may be outgrowing it soon. If so, I have my eyes on the subdivision down the road...

Unplayable. Filled with bugs. Early Access game that does not listen or address the concerns of the players. I stopped playing for a long time and came back to see what they changed. What they tried to improve was horrible. They double down on their own bad ideas. Who ever was responsible for interacting with the players for the developers would lie and gaslight the players. With all the bugs still in the game, how long it takes to play, and the micromanaging in addition to my past horrible experiences. I will not play or recommend this game. Unless there is a top secret update that adds and fixes so much this game is doomed. At this rate, it will play and run like something from the NES compared to mobile games people play on their phone.