Project Genesis Reviews

Don't let the graphics of the game fool you, this game is very much in need of work. On the gameplay end of things the game is fine, good controls and a solid concept but the matchmaking and service is horrible. I have great internet usually but their servers were laggy as hell. Their matchmaking system leaves much to be desired too, leading to every game I played being horrendously unbalanced, some matches being a 4v7 or 3v6. With all of this in mind, I'm not saying this isn't a game with potential, all of this could be fixed in time but I wont be playing this again until they are.

As a member of the community of Placeholder Genesis as well as the Test Pilot program for 2 years I can honestly say this game is not worth your time. While I understand that this game is still in early access, it has been for almost 4 years at this point and it begs the question, "Will this game ever launch?" The FPS PvP in this game is just a copy of CoD 4: Modern Warfare but done to a worse degree even though it has been almost 17 years to learn from. The Battle Craft combat uses a Third Person Camera angle which feels disconnected from the FPS portion of the game and brings out the worst part of the Third Person Camera system as you can hide behind the levels architecture and get easy kills on other players, if there are any in the lobby. The PvE is a bad version of Deep Rock Galactic. Just go buy that DRG as it can be picked up on sale quite often. They have made a choice to use the same weapons for both PvP and PvE so if you see numbers that seem egregious that is the answer. Weapons and the perks you have are locked behind collecting "Minerals" and credits from enemies but it turns out that just going in and picking an LMG the fastest is the best approach as ammo is the biggest issue you have. Most of the levels can pretty much be beat if you take your time with just the base load out. While I understand this may be a difficulty issue, there are no difficulty settings to PvE. Space combat is like flying helicopters in space. The levels take a long time to fly from spawn to an objective. Players can be blown up very quickly from someone sitting behind cover out of your view but because of the Third Person Camera they can see you coming. There are typically only 1-3 usable weapons in Battle Craft at a given time and it usually takes 6-12 months for a decent balance pass to be done so if you don't like the current weapons tough luck. The game Modes for Battle Craft are typically a capture the point style of game mode but staying still in the small zones is a death sentence as they are typically out in the open. It seems as if most of the community, even their testers, are already avoiding playing with the space ships, if you don't believe me you can look up the leaderboards on their website and see the extreme difference in kills between ships and FPS. The "Premiere" game mode is Detonation which is basically a Rush style mode for both teams to attack and defend their large ship base for each team at the same time. Players can choose to spawn inside their ship in FPS and defend their own ship or choose to spawn in a Battle Craft and attack the enemy ship. As it currently stands, The final objective on the enemy ship always ends the game and creates the win state,or just rush the ship with everyone and hope 1-2 people can play defense, or just full rush the ship. There is not enough depth to the mode to overthink how to play it, especially with the final objective being the win condition. One of the biggest problems is the spawn points for both teams Battle Craft are incredibly close to their defending ship making attacking quite difficult as 1-2 people can almost certainly play enough defense to force the game to go to the time limit. With the current spawn system Players in Battle Craft spawn in the same set few locations every time making the team who wins the first engagement in the map able to fly behind the spawn points and camp the enemy players indefinitely as there is no anti spawn camping feature, especially when you take into account that the camera cannot be turned around fast enough to behind the player to shoot back before they die. The only defense for this is that the bot AI can shoot in a 360 degree bubble around them instantly even if they are facing away from you. If the player base is ever full to a point of no bots, spawn camping will be the best option. Not only does it let you win but the only way to advance your account level as of now is by XP which you get for doing tasks or by killing players. The Weapons feel very neutered and very similar to each other as if they were copy pasted with a few number changes. There is no weapon customization which is mind blowing considering they used CoD as the base building block of the game. If you want to be sneaky and be quiet you really can't do that as there is no Silencer attachment to quiet things down. If you do not like the scope of a weapon, it sucks to be you. Muzzle flash on some weapons can be migraine inducing. As the producer has said they are trying to make this a competitive shooter I find it while that despite being a written up bug it took over 1.5 months for the people in charge to even realize that the Headshot multiplier was broken. Without any sort of weapon customization or progression using a weapon the 1st time feels the same as using the weapon the 500th time. The breach and board system is this game’s gimmick, however it turns out to just be a cut-scene playing of you in a small pod trying to enter a ship. There are several problems with the way this is implemented. One of which is the health you have in the pod is critical for how it plays, they seem to have too little health to where you die almost instantly in it or they give it way too much health to where there is no point even trying to defend against it. Keep in mind that the Enemy spawns are extremely quick and they spawn really close to their large ship defense point in which you are trying to enter. They also come the problem in which, when and if they have it to where players can breach to finally combine ships and FPS to interact on the same map, you are still stuck using a breach pod to get to there ground where just jumping out of the ship like Battlefield would fit the flow of the game much better. You as a character are either a ship or an FPS "Avatar" if you get out of your ship to take or defend a point in FPS mode and you want to go back to your ship, you are actually transported back to your spawn to then have to traverse the map again to get back to where you were. Despite being in development for almost 7 years this game still seems to be early in development especially when you see games like Void Crew already feel as if they have more to offer despite being started later. This is a game that feels stuck in 2013. Project Genesis is a Paint by numbers attempt at a CoD and DRG clone except Helen Keller could paint it better. The Day Before is still a better offer than this game. This development is stalled out in space drifting waiting for the next whim of development, hell PG at one point was going to be an attempt at an Overwatch clone. It's like asking a kid what they want to be when they grow up, they change their mind every 6-8 months.

Looks and plays great, always just bots. I REALLY want to like it but feels dead.

10/10 This is a great game for those that enjoy open space battles and classic FPS-style matches. The blend between the two genres is unique and a fresh experience. The developers and staff are all very friendly and interact with the community on a daily basis, and take into consideration the feedback of every player to make the most enjoyable game they can. As of writing the game is still in pre-alpha, so there are still noticeable bugs. But don't let that deter you, as their testers are constantly trying out fixes before updates even make it to the open build. All in all, it's a fantastic game with room to improve, and I can't wait to see future updates!

As a player that has spent years focused on shooters, this game is unique in the integration of space combat! Controls have been easy to learn for space flight and the FPS movement and game play feels pretty clean already even while still development! Huge updates and features are implemented regularly and each update makes the game feel even better! Definitely check this game out if you haven't already - super fun to play!

Really cool concept for a game honestly! I know it's still in prealpha but pretty excited to see where this game ends up. It already feels incredibly solid for an early access game and I was pretty impressed with how good the gun play felt overall. Definitely will be keeping my eye on this one. Solid work so far.

Pretty impressive game so far. Love the flying and the shooting mechanics. If you're new to flying, this might be the game for you. The controls are pretty easy to pickup and for still being in development, the shooter mechanics feel pretty damn good honestly. Worth checking out.

[i]{Note: Review written during pre-alpha}[/i] Project Genesis is a combo-shooter, wherein you have both spaceship combat and a close-quarter First Person Shooter. The spaceship combat feels fluid and lively, while the FPS combat feels solid and brutal. The community is very alive on the [url=https://discord.gg/kTQRsJp]Discord[/url], and they organise 2 large playtests every businessday [b](8PM CEST and 2AM CEST)[/b]. These are the best times to play, as it's pretty quiet outside of those times (at the moment). It's a great moment to meet the devs and day-one players! Keep in mind that this game is still in [b]PRE-ALPHA[/b] (not in BETA as another review has said), meaning [i]just 46% of the game has been completed[/i] as of this moment. They are testing the game daily, and are actively communicating with the community about features and what we would like to see. With it being this good already, it shows the potential the fully completed game has!

This game is pretty impressive, especially for being in pre-alpha right now. I'm really impressed with the amount of choices for FPS weapons and I'm looking forward to seeing how this game develops. Big fan of the fact it's built on Unreal! I wasn't sure how quickly I would get used to the flying portion of the game since I'm not very experienced with flying and stick to shooters almost exclusively...however, it's pretty easy to pickup the basics since flying in this game isn't nearly as complex as say a flight simulator-style game. Definitely didn't expect this quality out of an indie studio so huge props to the development team! Definitely a game to check out and keep your eye on in the future for sure. Big kudos overall from what I've experienced so far.

It's genuinely fun when you have other players to play with and against, but it's just not very exciting with bots. The player base has never been more than 30 players at peak with an average of 2 people playing at any time.