This is one of the rare times I wish Steam had a neutral option. I don't dislike Deadside, I just feel in it's current state, others in the genre do things better. Deadside is coming up short by the tried and true method of copying others while doing nothing better than others in this field.

I'd like to highlight what I think it gets right. Considering it's trying to be a Rust clone but with modern weapons, most of my review will use Rust as the bench mark.

*Positives
- Early start: One thing Rust does very well over titles like DayZ, getting down an early start so some form of progression is felt. The sense of having a spot to depot looted items, plays an important role in feeling like you're progressing, even if it's very short loot runs. You're slowly building stock and never feeling like you'll be back to square one as a naked on the beach. Deadside nails this! You start with a knife which allows you to get a base down extremely fast by only hitting a bush. Add in the fact, twig building is very cost effective vs eco raids, it feels very balanced to get a spot down and start working towards upgrading your base. Very similar to Rust moving from wood to stone.

- Gear: Deadside loot is very easy to come by and this means even weapons. A simple "naked" start you can have a shotgun or pistol from the very first location you loot. Meaning, a quick snowball is always possible. A very important feature to fun and exciting moments. A should add, Deadside also does a good job of locking the higher tier gear behind more dangerous monuments and a tiered trader leveling system. So while it is quick to get a weapon & you don't feel defenseless. You still have to work at getting high tier armor and weapons.

Things to do: I'm going to place this in the positive section, but will come back to this with a negative point of view. It does a good job of having missions and events constantly appearing all over the map. This leads to POI's for players to actively engage in PVP. It also gives the sense of Rust monument control. Building near an area that constantly has tier 3 missions, it very similar to building an oil rig base to constantly contest.

*Needs work
- Balancing: There a lot of balance issues. Building upkeep cost is a nonfactor. A simple once a week casual could easily farm for 30min and have 30 days of upkeep on a standard honey comb 2x2. Add in the fact trees and bushes are not removed when harvesting. A clan can simply have 1 tree and 1 bush in their compound and it's infinite resources with zero fear of their farmer getting ganked by the local solo.

This also extends to raid vs build cost. Raiding tools like c4 and dynamite are everywhere and in large supply. So it's very easy to farm the resources to raid even the biggest of bases. To add to this, when raiding a 1st floor wall, all walls above this are removed. So building up does little to protect vs a raiding party (somewhat, explained in a later point).

- Food & Water: The consumption rate is terrible. You will be forced to eat and drink nonstop (every 20min from full).

*Negatives
- Building: You can only build with squares, this does not include half walls of any kind. So building as a whole lacks creativity. Triangle foundations would go a long way to improving base designs & options.

- Raid options: There are no ladders or any tools to reach roofs or higher spots of a base. This means a team could essentially place TC on the shooting floor and you would be forced to raid from the ground up via doors. Thus another area of cat & mouse between the raider and builder that should exist but isn't present.

- Static map: Unlike Rust, the map is pre-designed. So each and every wipe will feel exactly the same, which will lead into my next negative.

- Lack of stories: One of the key features of Rust and why people sink 10,000+ hours is the ability of each and every wipe to feel different. The ability to shape your story by the in-game options. You don't want to be a PVP chad but instead build a berry farm and sell goods for guns and scrap, go for it. You want this wipe to be a water base engaging & contesting oil rig or cargo, you can do that. It will be a different experience every time. Deadside lacks the options of your story to feel different each wipe. Essentially everyone will be doing the exact same things. Living in a square base, running the same missions & events.

- Things to do: I mentioned in the positives this would show up as a negative. While it does feature a lot of missions and events, one area that it falls short. Every mission or event spawns in a designated location. So you're left to repeatedly running the same things rinse and repeat. It gets old very fast. Add that your time isn't being broken up by having to go farm or plan out your detailed build, it becomes very stale to run/drive to mission, go home to depot, only to turn around and go to your 15th run of the same type of event. The game focuses entirely to much on these events being the center of progression to better items. Allowing for a diversity of play styles would go a long way to helping the player not feel stuck doing the same things over and over, day after day, week after week, until you've seen all there is to see in one single wipe.....ugggggg.

- Farming: There is no farming in the game at all, which yet again pigeon holes the player into one single play style. Farm missions for the billionth time.

- Server Size: I think this is the biggest negative for me as a player and one that keeps me coming back to Rust. Whether you are fighting on a 500 pop server or a steady 200 pop. Every wipe you never know who your neighbors will be but you 100% know you'll have some memories to create that will shape each wipe into a different experience. Deadside has a max of 70 player servers at this time and with a fairly large map, so this leads to most of the map feeling empty. You are not trying to find a build location near a location you would like to be, 99% of the time, this area will be void of any humans and more than likely your neighbor will be outside of even visual range. Add in the lack of options to mess with said neighbor and both parties are left with 2 options. Raid or PVP at an event because no one is doing anything outside someones base when you have zero ability to do anything and farming isn't even required to leave your base.

*Final thoughts
I see a lot of potential in Deadside, it gets some key aspects right. Sadly, at this time, it just doesn't offer anything to make the experience memorable. I hope the devs take note of reviews such as this and expand the game to offer an experience that is rich and different each wipe. Until that time, I'll take a break and monitor patches hoping to see a more fleshed out gameplay loop.

**Extra**
- Raid Tokens: Bring back the server option to enable raid tokens instead of on/off raiding. This in combination with current build system could be a great alternative to Rust's ever present offline raiding issue.

You cannot host your own server. If you want your own server, you will need to shell out at least $25 a month to GPortal for hosting. Requested refund.

The game is fun, but there are some issues:
-Please add a max FPS setting because V-Sync makes my screen flicker.
-It would be nice to join friends, invite them, or at least see their server.
-Inventory needs fixing—stackable items should stack easily, and clothes should replace automatically without removing the old ones first.
-Spawning at the same zones is boring.
These changes would improve the experience a lot!