- April 16, 2026
- Malformation Games
- 2h median play time
Ground Zero
A rich, replay-heavy survival horror revival that stumbles in its menus and controls but delivers strong atmosphere, exploration, and discovery.
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About
Ground Zero is a single player survival shooter game with horror, post-apocalyptic and science fiction themes. It was developed by Malformation Games and was released on April 16, 2026. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and very positive reviews from players.
Fight through post-apocalyptic South Korea in this retro survival horror. Uncover the truth behind the devastating meteor impact that left the country in ruins and turned every living organism into a terrifying monstrosity. Fight. Solve puzzles. Upgrade gear. Make every bullet count.
- Authentic old-school survival horror experience with tank and modern controls, evoking classics like Resident Evil 3 and Dino Crisis.
- Large amount of content including multiple branching paths, varied locations, puzzles, weapons, unlockables, NG+ mode, and a mercenary-style extra mode for high replayability.
- Strong atmosphere and setting captured well via detailed pre-rendered backgrounds, sound design, and appropriate music, alongside likeable characters and decent voice acting.
- Performance and optimization issues, including high GPU usage and frame drops, especially on some hardware and scenes, plus various minor bugs and glitches.
- Fixed camera angle system often frustrating due to awkward angles, disorienting camera switches, poor map design (no floor switching), and inconvenient backtracking.
- Combat balance problems where critical shot mechanic can trivialize fights, leading to excessive ammo abundance in later stages and limited meaningful weapon choice; some mechanics such as parry feel ineffective or tedious.
gameplay
139 mentions Positive Neutral NegativeGameplay in this survival horror title offers a nostalgic fixed-camera and tank control experience with modern twists like dodge, parry, and a critical shot mechanic that rewards timing but can unbalance difficulty. While combat and progression feel engaging and intuitive, some mechanics—particularly parrying and critical shots—are polarizing, with issues in balance and execution causing the game to become overly easy for skilled players or frustrating for others. Despite minor bugs and camera control limitations, the gameplay loop is widely praised for its smoothness, variety, and replay value, making it a solid choice for fans of classic survival horror.
“The combat is simple yet effective, adding the parry mechanic — while some people say it is unnecessary, I enjoyed it instead of dodging or blocking. The weapon attachments, multitude of weapons, everything handled very well.”
“With the design choices and mechanics fine tuned, alternate paths are no longer small 15-minute detours but rather whole entire levels that change how you approach the game (some are more dangerous but faster to save supplies, others offer more medical over weapons, etc.). Jill's dodge is now a dedicated button that can be done at will so long as you have stamina, and as a last-ditch effort you can attempt to deflect the attack and counter with one of your own. When enemies are knocked down you can perform an execution. 'Herbs' now give permanent stat boosts if you combine three of them. You also have a 'pot-shot' mechanic to save ammo. But this is offset by enemies becoming more aggressive when wounded, making them harder to dodge, so your one-shot might just become on par with a bee sting if you mess up the timing.”
“But in addition to that, you also have a critical aim mechanic, a timing-based mechanic (think of active reload from many shooters) that lets you take some time to focus your aim and then if you do the mechanic successfully you actually one-shot kill enemies with it, which I found to be a very fun addition due to its risk/reward nature. It certainly has balance issues and timing-based mechanics aren't everyone's cup of tea.”
“Dino Crisis 2 point shop, a timed shot mechanic to do critical damage that inexplicably allows any weapon in the game to one shot all standard enemies which is exactly as goofy and broken as it sounds when combined with machine guns and their very large ammo capacities.”
“So what ends up happening for gameplay is you will be standing still for the 4 seconds to line up your critical shot, hopefully hitting the quick time event which just seems to be random in speed and has some form of input delay to it just to add insult to injury. In the case you missed, then you're going to be stuck in the eternal parry loop hell because there is just no reasonable way to put distance between you and the enemy due to the horrid controls and camera angles.”
“There is a reason why they don't make games with fixed camera angles anymore and it's because it's not needed (it was only done due to hardware limitations) and because it makes the gameplay into absolute garbage.”
Ground Zero
A rich, replay-heavy survival horror revival that stumbles in its menus and controls but delivers strong atmosphere, exploration, and discovery.
83%Ground Zero Review - An Old-School Survival Horror Game Through And Through
Ground Zero plays its cards very early on, showing you exactly what it wants to do from the get-go. It channels its inspiration from old-school survival horror games that made the PS1 so special, even leaning into pre-rendered backgrounds and offering tank controls. Visuals get blurry in certain areas, and frame rate takes a hit in weird places. Then there's the old-school need to actually conserve your ammunition for boss fights, which can put you in a position where you can't defeat the boss without enough weaponry. Overall, Ground Zero makes for a good time and has a good gameplay loop as long as you know what to expect from it.
75%Ground Zero Review – A Love Letter to Resident Evil That Stands on Its Own
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Frequently Asked Questions
Ground Zero is a survival shooter game with horror, post-apocalyptic and science fiction themes.
Ground Zero is available on Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5, Windows and others.
On average players spend around 2 hours playing Ground Zero.
Ground Zero was released on April 16, 2026.
Ground Zero was developed by Malformation Games.
Ground Zero has received mostly positive reviews from players and mostly positive reviews from critics. Most players liked Ground Zero for its gameplay but disliked it for its optimization.
Ground Zero is a single player game.
Similar games include Them and Us, Tormented Souls, Hollowbody, Echoes of the Living, Alisa and others.