Indie developer, Ramjet Studios has unveiled a new video showcasing upcoming content, alterations, and features for their open-world zombie survival game, VEIN.
The video offers a glimpse of upcoming features, even though they might not be fully prepared for deploying the update at the moment. Another video, akin to the one for Update 0.008, will be released in the future, revealing the contents of the patch.
VEIN is an open-world zombie survival game, similarly to the likes of Project Zomboid and 7 Days 2 Die, however in the favor of VEIN, this isn’t some prissy isometric title but rather a detailed and intricate 3D experience much like 7D2D however VEIN has a much greater emphasis on realism, much like Project Zomboid.
This latest devlog video goes over changes to the overworld, which will be expanded with the addition of a second town to traverse and loot, this new town will bring various places of interest such as an archery shop, hardware stores and a public school.
The video highlights various updates, including weapon modifications and the introduction of the Mosin Nagant rifle. Character modifiers, such as the effectiveness of cooked versus uncooked food and the impact of antidepressants on stress, are also featured.
More changes were made to give the game a much needed realism flare, with “the “Maplemarts” now including functional food warmers, coffee machines alongside a propane locker out back.
Ramjet Studios are looking to include various electric vehicle charging stations for electric vehicles in VEIN, alongside gas station air pipes for vehicle maintenance.
Significant alterations are underway in the crafting system, incorporating fortifications constructed from wood and limestone bricks to safeguard your base from zombies.
Additionally, two new vehicles, a 4-seater SUV and a box truck, are showcased, along with sleeping zombies, fortifications responding differently to various damage types, item respawning, and more such as visual enhancements, encompassing water, weather, and wounds, are also part of the showcased changes.
Overall, these changes are rather small in retrospect because the game is quite evidently a long way from completion, it needs quite awhile longer in the oven before it can even be considered a full functional title, however there’s quite a lot of promise for VEIN’s continued development.
VEIN encompasses a variety of significant elements, including material collection, base building, fortification, gathering, and survival. The game integrates over a dozen character stats, ranging from agility to farming, and even hotwiring cars, allowing players to select multiple stats for a quick boost at the outset. Additionally, the choice of occupation contributes to various stat points, providing a diverse gameplay experience.
Ramjet Studios has made considerable progress with their game in the span of a year and a half. Looking ahead, with another year of development, it might become a compelling title that could genuinely rival 7 Days to Die in terms of gameplay and features. While the game may not run as smoothly as desired, it’s worth noting that 7 Days to Die faces similar challenges in terms of optimization.
And while the competing 7 Days 2 Die developers, “The Fun Pimps” have evidently become lazy hacks over the past several years in terms of actual updates, with 7 Days 2 Die having recently celebrated its tenth anniversary as a Steam Early Access title.
Let that sink in for a moment, 10 goddamn years in early access, with “The Fun Pimps” seemingly releasing one update, just a single fucking update over the span of more than a whole year.
Their most recent update, Alpha 21, which significantly revamped the game’s progression system, was released in June 2023. Considering that the preceding update, Alpha 20, was launched in November 2021, it’s safe to say that the development pace at The Fun Pimps has been quite sluggish.
One might even speculate if the development reins have been handed over to the undead.
The Fun Pimps continue to ride on the immense popularity of its online open-world zombie survival title by doing the absolute bare minimum possible simply because the game has already sold more than enough copies over the ten years it has been available on Steam.
Needless to say, we’re in dire need of some actual competition in the open-world zombie survival genre and Ramjet Studios are more than happy to oblige, as they continually produce large enough scale updates once every couple of months while providing a constant string of these “devlog” videos that goes in-depth about the future plans for the game and what fans can look forward to.
Oh yeah, and did I mention that VEIN currently has a free demo available for download on Steam? That’s right, Ramjet Studios are providing VEIN as a playable demo instead of launching their game in “early access”.
The Fun Pimps can go fuck themselves because there’s a new zombie survival game in town, one that seemingly is being made by developers who are actually passionate about their project rather than simply taking a gap year because your game became the flavor of the month for YouTube content creators.
