The Front Survive today, save tomorrow

You start with nothing on a land broken by war, populated by mutants and hostile factions. Deserts, forests, snowlands and swamps hide unexplored places: underground research institutes, restricted military bases, ruins worth looting. Along the way you collect blueprints, claim airdrops and gather the resources that keep you alive. Hunger, weather and the elements all demand attention, so cooking matters: craft water-powered equipment, build a farm with spraying and planting, and work through dozens of recipes for proper meals. The mission is bigger than staying fed, though. You are here to fight an empire, and everything you gather serves that fight.

Building goes beyond walls and a roof. Hundreds of components let you shape a base that shelters you and protects your stockpile, and then you get to make it genuinely hostile to visitors. Tower defense-style traps let you route attacking monsters through a gauntlet designed to stop explosive beasts, invisible assassins and flying soldiers. For something smarter, wire up pressure plates, infrared sensors and complete circuits into automated defense systems that work while you are off looting. The difference between a base that survives a raid and one that does not often comes down to how cruelly you designed the approach.

Over 20 types of functional vehicles are yours to craft and pilot: pickup trucks, logging and mining trucks, self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, attack helicopters and more. The Vehicle Assembly system goes further, letting you build a combat vehicle from the ground up: chassis and frame first, then engines, weapons and armor modules, mixed and matched as you please. A fast assault rig, a slow firepower monster, or something stranger entirely, the parts decide. Tanks and helicopters also change how you fight, turning raids on enemy bases into a very different kind of afternoon.

Combat runs from melee weapons and firearms to explosives, and the world gives you plenty of targets: imperial forces, exiles, thugs, rebels and mutants. You can raid the bases of other players or defend your own territory, and PvP is part of the game's fabric. Not every fight has to be yours alone, either. A small workforce of former enemies is a strange but effective way to run an empire-toppling campaign.

The Front is built for playing together, in online co-op or against each other. A group can split the work naturally: one person farms and cooks, another wires up trap circuits, someone assembles a vehicle while the rest scout enemy areas. Exploring ruins and raiding bases is a shared job, and defending your base against a wave of monsters is where the chaos really pays off, with plans falling apart in funny ways and everyone improvising. It also works solo if you prefer your resistance cell to be a population of one, but the game clearly shines when there are several of you.