Level Zero: Extraction Review

When did Escape from Tarkov get relocated?

Suit up and put on some good goggles because you’re about to get mag dumped by nail guns and spat on by aliens when you hit the play button. Level Zero: Extraction is not for anyone looking to find a casual experience, and it makes it very obvious.

Developed by Doghowl Games and published by tinyBuild, Level Zero: Extraction takes place in a world after yet another group of scientists messed with something that went wrong. Hindsight 20/20, splicing human and alien DNA probably isn’t the best thing for your health since, shockingly, the aliens break out and wreak havoc.

If you decide the mercenary life is what you want, your job in the game is to collect items of importance and value, then get out before the station runs dry of life support. On the other hand, the game gives you the option of playing as the alien and causing every mercenary player enough grief to want to use the nailgun on themselves.

That’s to say you don’t do that as a mercenary in any case since everyone collectively believes “if it moves, shoot,” and friendly players are rarer than the objects you’re supposed to find for the traders. Competitive games like this are all good, but when there’s already a public enemy in the game, or a few, you sometimes wish the cooperative spirit of others was less see-through than air.

Starting with a nail gun outfitted to Postal standards, you’re sent into the darkness of the station where the aliens broke out. Armed with flares for aliens and said nail gun for humans, you have to carefully get through the facility, grabbing anything that might net you a few bits of cash to replace your equipment or buy new toys to lose in the next round.

With light switches everywhere, many players rush to turn them on to give themselves a moment of respite. Well, this is perfectly natural. The facility isn’t so caring as to let you camp out a light for the entire match. At certain times, all lights are shut off, and elevators become unusable, so you better hope you didn’t accidentally leave your flashlight on the entire time.

Since light is your main weapon against alien players, you’ll almost become addicted to crouching and filling your hot bar with flares and your trusty bulky flashlight. The game’s design works on the horror element of “whatever is in the dark is the enemy” and stays true to that design with teeth and claws.

If aliens aren’t a hassle for a merc player, then don’t worry. There are still two other enemy types lurking, waiting to jump them from the shadows, albeit less subtly than player-controlled enemies. Pick your poison, machine gun robot, or endless shambling zombies lunging for your jugular with no hesitation.

While not necessarily hard to deal with, the zombies of Level Zero: Extraction are definitely annoying. Oh, you’re busy being engaged in a firefight with an acid-spitting alien? Perfect time to cause our favorite bleeding wound and make you miss all your shots from being bumped. These ammo sponges are frequent throughout the facility, which is taxing to deal with, but at least they drop loot sometimes!

Then, we have the run-on sight enemy of Level Zero: Extraction. The funny little robot rolled around with a full-auto machine gun, shining its laser sight to and fro, hoping to catch someone out of place. Unlike with the zombies and aliens, this thing doesn’t care what equipment you have. It’ll square you up like it’s Mike Tyson vs an average golfer. Pack your EMPs if you have any, and stay out of sight and mind.

After your first few games of being bodied by already-made veterans of the game, you might find yourself getting out alive with some duct tape and scissors as your grand haul. Take this win since the consistency of getting out changes irrelevant to how well-packed you are.

These bits of loot you manage to rescue from the dark depths you can trade to the few traders currently in the game for either cash or other odds and ends. These relations you build with them further what they’re willing to sell to you since nobody would be willing to trade an assault rifle at a discount to a newbie who will probably get one-tapped a minute into a raid.

Progressing through quests and building up your reputation are the game’s main points, much like games like Dark and Darker or Escape from Tarkov. The replayability factor is admirable if you’re mildly masochistic in your gameplay choices.

This isn’t to say the game’s gameplay loop is tilting, even though it is, but rather to point out that the game doesn’t really tap into any new niche. While it does bring in mechanics from other games, it’s still nothing new. The best description of Level Zero: Extraction would be an Escape from Tarkov dating sim with a flashlight.

One thing the game does have going for it is its decent graphics if you have the gaming rig that can handle it and the patience to wait for most of it not to be in complete darkness. While Level Zero: Extraction has just been released, and it does sadly show through the game’s current level of optimization, the potential it shows is quite remarkable.

With a bit more work and some more balancing to make the gameplay more enjoyable for all player types, Level Zero: Extraction can most definitely be a 100+ hour game for many in the genre of tactical extraction shooters, not to say there aren’t already people closing in on the triple digits!

A few things we feel could be worked on are the pricing of items since, even though before every raid, you get your trusty nail gun, a lot of the base-level equipment is pretty heavy on the wallet. Alternatively, boosting damage on some of the earlier stuff to make it a smidge easier not to get bodied by the shadow of an enemy could be the answer.

Another would be the leaning; sometimes, it feels more like it gets in the way since your model moves like a string underwater while you’re peaking a corner. While this may not be a pressing issue when there’s no action, this mechanic can become a bigger enemy during firefights than the rifle wielders down the hall from you.

All in all, while there are many pressing issues and some good points to make for Level Zero: Extraction, the game isn’t a game-changer but is definitely some players’ cup of tea. It may feel a bit flat for now, but hopefully, the devs have something good cooking up in the backroom to bring into the flashlight field of view in the updates to come.