Expedition Zero is a First-Person Survival Sandbox/Survival Horror indie game developed by Enigmatic Machines (a small Czech team of less than 10 developers) and published by tinyBuild.
Players take the role of an unnamed protagonist who has gone to investigate a region of the Russian countryside that has been closed off by the government, only to find the entire area abandoned due to an outbreak of a mysterious plague. Trapped within the quarantined Anomaly Zone and searching for a means to escape, the protagonist is contacted by a Trader who offers them safe passage to the outside in exchange for collecting samples of the plague from a nearby dark forest. Armed only with an old bolt-action Mosin-Nagant rifle, he will have to contend with the deadly sub-zero cold of the Russian winter, locals who the plague have turned mindlessly aggressive, as well as a mysterious otherworldly creature that lurks within the forest.
Expedition Zero contains examples of:
- And Then John Was a Zombie: At the end of the game, after the protagonist collects all the samples and manages to destroy the local source of the plague, he returns to the Trader for passage to the outside world. However, the Trader notes he shouldn't leave in his current state, causing the protagonist to look in a mirror and realize he's infected and already transformed into one of the zombies. His only hope is to travel deeper into the Zone in search of a cure.
- Bears Are Bad News: There's at least 1 infected bear living in the woods, which you may randomly run into at one of the points of interest on the map. It's noticably faster and more aggressive than zombies, and can take more damage, requiring at least 5 headshots from the rifle to kill. The bear can also actively search for you, unlike zombies which just wander around until you get relatively close, and can even enter tents and some other indoor areas, making it possible for it to ambush you while you're busy crafting at a 3D printer.
- Crowbar Combatant: A prybar is obtained fairly early on which allows you to search containers for resources and pry open metal doors. It can also be used as a melee weapon in a pinch.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Besides being the site of a highly infectious plague outbreak, there's also some kind of hostile, agile, tree-hopping creature stalking the place, seeming like a Slavic Mothman or Russian Jersey Devil.
- Featureless Protagonist: Your character doesn't seem to have any actual facial features appearing. Even on the cover art, you face is obscured by a gasmask.
- Government Conspiracy: Notes you find in abandoned labs indicate that the government quarantined the local population and vaccinated them against an unspecified disease, but this was all just a pretext to inject them with DNA taken from a mysterious fungus-like super-organism they found deep underground. Over the course of several weeks the DNA transformed the victims into mindless infected and started spreading beyond the test subjects.
- Interface Screw: Your view will experience video artifacting when the creature is nearby.
- Monogender Monsters: A research note you find notes that after being infected for a few weeks, infected men and women become virtually indistinguishable in appearance. This is likely to account for the fact that there's only 1 zombie model in the game.
- Our Zombies Are Different: They're infected who have been driven insane, mindless, and violently aggressive by a mysterious plague. They wield wood axes and are a tad on the slow side, though your character is no Olympic runner himself.
- Roaming Enemy: The creature roams the forest randomly and will come across you and attack you randomly. However, using the locator to find infections or cleanse them seems to attract it, and there are a couple of events (the roots infection in the graveyard and the holy candles infection at the outpost, as well as the Final Boss fight) where you're guaranteed to encounter it and must accomplish objectives while fighting it off. The bear might also be doing this, considering you encounter it at random and it can sneak up on you while you're doing something else.
- Seeking Sanctuary: The Church is probably one of the first buildings you want to look for, as it's the only shelter besides the starting military camp that doesn't require you to repair it, having a fully functional battery charger, heat source, 3D printer, and bed from the beginning as well as not needing to be barricaded. Zombies also don't appear there and you're safe from the creature inside, though this is most likely because it's an intact sheltered structure rather than any holy protection. It's also the only location where you'll see ghosts, but they're harmless.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: A double-barrel shotgun can be obtained in a padlocked area in the basement of the church ( the key can be found in the lab underneath the Shelter). Unlike the bolt-action rifle, it can fire off 2 shots in rapid succession, though it needs to be reloaded afterwards. It's mostly useful for dealing with the bear as well as the Giant Mook creature in the lab underneath the Farmhouse.
- Snow Means Death: The game takes place at night during the Russian winter, at sub-freezing temperatures with dynamic weather that varies from bad to really bad.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: At one point in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon you take an elevator and are suddenly dropped into the basement, which is completely flooded and now underwater. You don't have to worry about drowning because you're wearing a hazmat suit, which somehow lets you breath indefinitely underwater.
- Survival Sandbox: The main focus of the game is exploring the forest and gathering supplies while avoiding freezing to death or running out of battery power for your suit. Combat against zombies and the creature make up a relatively minor part of the game's overall length.
- Unique Enemy: The two main enemy types are zombies and the creature. You may run into an infected bear, but it's extremely rare and appears randomly; it's unclear if there's only 1 or if they just have a really low spawn chance, but you're highly unlikely to run into more than 1 in a playthrough. There's also the miniboss/Giant Mook creature living underneath the Farmhouse.
- Unusable Enemy Equipment: You can't use the wood axes carried by infected locals, and will have to find your own laying around to chop wood with.
