Co-op Multiplayer.
PvP Multiplayer.
The Developers of Level Zero: Extraction had a good concept, and combining survival horror and the extraction genre has not been attempted successfully in this manner.
Unfortunately, it still has not been attempted successfully.
Design issue aside, Level Zero: Extraction runs like molasses on a snowbank on even high-end rigs. After running it on a machine that well exceeds the recommended requirements, I was disappointed to see that FPS drops are common, and even opening a door can result in a frame rate drop of 15FPS or more.
Performance issues aside, Level Zero: Extraction doesn’t feel like a polished shooter. While yes, it’s still in early access, extraction shooters need great gunplay. To be honest, Level Zero: Extraction’s gunplay is barely passable at best, and fans of the genre will be put off by how unresponsive combat feels right from the get-go.
Image credit Level Zero: Extraction - Published by tinyBuild and developed by DogHowl Games.
It’s not all bad news, however. While performance issues and terrible gunplay are dealbreakers, visually, it’s impressive for the price and has a solid and intriguing concept.
While I feel it would have done better if the developers made it a single-player first-person shooter with optional co-op instead of a PvPvE first-person shooter, Level Zero: Extraction does give off Alien Isolation vibes. More than once, I felt genuine trepidation before opening a door, not just because of the 15FPS hit I knew would follow.
Concept aside, if Level Zero: Extraction can live long enough to reach version 1.0 and release on console, it will likely perform better than on PC, where Escape from Tarkov has dominated the market for multiple years, leaving little room for new titles such as Level Zero: Extraction to attract an audience.
Image credit Level Zero: Extraction - Published by tinyBuild and developed by DogHowl Games.
I like Tinybuild; they have published some of my favourite indie games. However, they need to be more careful about which games they champion. While their reputation is mostly solid, they have recently begun publishing games of substantially lower quality than what I have come to expect from them.
While times are tough in the industry, reputation is worth more than gold. I would love to see Tinybuild move to publishing higher-quality titles, even if it means reducing the number of titles they release each year.
Overall, while Level Zero: Extraction is not a bad game, it’s certainly only average at best, and that may not be good enough to cut it when one or two very good games dominate the extraction genre, and being average just isn’t good enough if you are trying to attract and retain an audience large enough to sustain ongoing development without working for peanuts or being forced to release as a feature incomplete game, that withers on the vine.
Image credit Level Zero: Extraction - Published by tinyBuild and developed by DogHowl Games.
Level Zero: Extraction is a extraction shooter video game developed by DogHowl Games and published by tinyBuild, it was released on 13 August 2024 and retails for $19.99.
Level Zero: Extraction is available exclusively on PC.
As of September 2024, around 2500 people play Level Zero: Extraction on a fairly regular basis.
Level Zero: Extraction is barely active, meaning that while finding full lobbies is possible at peak times in populated regions, matchmaking times are likely to be very lengthy, and for those in less populated regions, finding full lobbies may be difficult.
Level Zero: Extraction offers the following matchmaking options:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Level Zero: Extraction is unrated and contains:
Level Zero: Extraction isn’t a bad game, and it still has plenty of time to improve, but it’s facing an uphill battle to survive, let alone thrive, and with multiple better games having met unfortunate ends already in an attempt to compete with Escape from Tarkov (including attempted by Activision and EA), the future is bleak for Level Zero: Extraction, and until some sign of that future being only one possible one, I cannot recommend Level Zero: Extraction, despite finding it to be a (ever so slightly) above average title.
