Endzone - A World Apart

Endzone - A World Apart: Rebuild Civilization, Post-Apocalypse

A city-builder that basically takes place in hell.

Do They Need Cities at the End of the World? 

Endzone - A World Apart, is a city builder. These games are a dime a dozen, so in order to be successful, a city builder must add a unique twist, gameplay mechanic, or plot point that makes it intriguing or interesting. Thankfully, Endzone accomplishes this. You aren't just building a city, but building a city in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse. As a result, the areas of building and resource management are very different than most games you play. 

Concept - Is the rain glowing?

In 2021, terrorists have destroyed nuclear plants, turning most of the world into unsurvivable wastelands. Humanity escapes to "Endzones" underground, returns 150 years later, and attempts to rebuild. 

Players have to rebuild civilization...

Players have to rebuild civilization by using a variety of standard tools, gathering technology, manage resources, and constructing over 70 different buildings. The environment is also a key factor in this game, as you have to contend with remaining radiation, climate change, and poisonous rain. 

The game does a great job of striking a happy medium: It uses familiar mechanics but makes some fascinating twists on them, playing into a sense of lore and ensuring that the environmental factors get prime billing. They aren't unmanageable, but it does add a layer of difficulty into this genre. 

RATING: 5/5

Graphics & Audio - Brown & Grey

The graphics and audio track here are nothing special. Yes, they get the job done, and the audio does an excellent job - at points - of adding to the overall sense of desolation players are meant to experience. However, the graphics are disappointing. For a more modern game, the lack sharpness. Endzone is drenched in brown and grey colors, and while this is meant to be atmospheric, it can get very old, very quickly. 

RATING: 3/5

Gameplay - Easy Peasy

For any city building game to be successful, it has to have an excellent user interface and make executing commands and movements as easy as possible. Thankfully, Endzone succeeds in this regard. It uses a variety of control panels that are easy to switch between. Management, commands, and builders are all easy to order around. Building is a breeze, and the game's graphics nicely shift between constructed buildings and buildings that are in progress. At the same time, alerts and pings will alert you when something occurs that you have to pay attention to. This dramatically enhances your ability to respond, in real-time, to the events of the game. 

RATING: 5/5

Inexpensive, Evolving, and Replayable

Endzone - A World Apart is a unique survival city-builder developed by Gentlymad Studios. The game originally released in 2020 on Early Access but the full version is currently available for download for about $20, barring a sale. You can also purchase a special edition version of the game. It's also worth noting that the game added new features once it exited Early Access. As such, it is possible that more features will come out in the future.

A city builder is not a once and done experience, and if it is, something has gone wrong. Thankfully, Endzone is a highly replayable game. There are a variety of different strategies and tactics you can experiment with, and adventurous or curious players can find alternative ways of building their colony so that they can find success. Do you pay tribute to your enemies, or do you take them head-on? Do you go deep on research, or weapons? There are many pathways for you to experiment with, and while the core concept never really changes, it's a broad enough concept that you can wring dozens of hours of fun out of it.

REPLAYABILITY: 4/5

TL;DR

Endzone - A World Apart provides a nice twist on standard city-builders, successfully leveraging sharp controls and an intuitive interface to make for a great game.