Extraction shooters are a very niche yet popular subsection of the FPS genre. Generally, this is what you can expect from them: You load into a map either solo or with a premade group and hunt for objects that, if you extract from the map with (hence the name, extraction shooter,) give you some kind of value or are permanently added to your inventory. If you die, everything you brought in with you drops, giving the game a unique risk other FPS titles don’t have by giving players persistent loot. There’s a level of competitiveness and stress that uniquely comes from this genre because that awesome gun you love so much can be gone instantly if you aren’t absolutely perfect with your situational awareness and reflexes in combat.
If you think adding a horror element to that stress seems like a good idea, then I think you understand the developers’ mindset behind Level Zero: Extraction.
Level Zero: Extraction is an extraction shooter in the vein of Tarkov or Marauders with an added twist. Just like Dead by Daylight or other asymmetrical horror games, players are controlling bloodthirsty, monstrous aliens that (in theory) are much more powerful than their human counterparts. In addition to fighting other players and looting resources, Mercs in Level Zero: Extraction must also play a survival horror game, watching their corners and avoiding shadows so that they don’t end up alien dinner.
I’ll immediately say that, on a conceptual level, I love Level Zero: Extraction.
If my introduction to this review didn’t already tell you this, I think the stressful environment of an extraction shooter is a great area to throw in traditional horror. The fear of losing your stuff can make every creak, every moan of a building settling, and every distant footstep freeze you in place.
As far as the atmosphere goes, Level Zero: Extraction does this very well. As a Merc (or human), the environment is terrifying to navigate, with many ambient noises that can trick you into thinking an alien or player is nearby (or masking their presence.) The map is claustrophobic, and the lights constantly flicker in and out or outright shut down to complete darkness, making you feel really unsafe. When I played Merc, I often found myself hiding in a corner, making very slow crawling progress across the map.
Level Zero: Extraction clearly takes its inspiration from the movies Alien and The Thing, with the map especially feeling inspired by the latter and the monsters, of course, inspired by the former. I wasn’t super sold on the game visually at first, but it began to grow on me when I realized the horror classics it paid homage to.
Something else I like about Level Zero: Extraction is that it allows you to earn money you can spend on Mercs by playing aliens. This gives you a way to circumvent the sort of crash you experience in extraction shooters, where too many bad runs leave you broke and gearless with no easy way to progress back.
Unfortunately, for everything I enjoy about Level Zero: Extraction, there are a host of issues in the current Early Access build that need to be addressed before the game is ready to go live.
Mercs are armed with two kinds of weapons: Firearms, which are useful against other players, enemy AI, and aliens, though they don’t do much damage against them. Light is the second weapon in the arsenal of human players, and light absolutely demolishes an alien’s health, leaving them severely weakened or dead if you use it right. Aliens are damaged by the flashlight weapon, flares, and lights created from environmental sources.
Balancing seems to be an issue that Level Zero: Extraction struggles with, to the point where it hurts the game’s horror aspirations. Once you start to realize just how easy it is to kill aliens, you stop being afraid of them, and most players will simply charge aliens down as soon as they see them.
The damage aliens take from light sources, paired with their long cooldowns and limited energy, also forces them to play the game as though it’s a war of attrition, slowly whittling down human players before going for the kill. This task isn’t easy due to the prevalence of health stims humans often enter the game with, and because of how quickly flashlights kill aliens, it usually forces them to play a game of corner peaking, quickly shooting them with spit attacks and then running away to restore energy. It becomes even harder for aliens when players are in groups of 3+.
This really destroys all of the attention of a match. Because of how the aliens are forced to play, you can easily identify human traits in the players playing them and see the arguably scummy, definitely not scary tactics they’re using to try and get you. It immediately makes me feel like, “Oh, never mind, there’s nothing to be afraid of here.” as I just walk toward enemies with my flashlight.
It would seem as soon as day one, a meta has sprung up in Level Zero: Extraction, where players and aliens camp the exits to try and get easy kills at the end of your runs. This is especially true of other players, who will take high-damage guns and gun down players with gear that can’t complete, take their stuff, and leave.
Level Zero: Extraction is still in Early Access, and because of that, I still hope that it can be a great game. It certainly has the concept for it. However, to do so, it needs to work on its balance and change up how aliens play the game and how players fight back against them. As it exists, the game is frustrating at worst and plain not scary at best.
Pros:
- A cool concept, combining extraction shooters with asymmetrical horror games
- Great visuals and ambiance
Cons:
- Poor balancing that can often make the game frustrating and heavily fight the intended horror
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