First off, no, I’m not about to go on a rant about how Unturned should be more PvP-centric than it already is, or add a suggestion for some half-broken mode that could be executed better in a different game, or even suggest a weapon/vehicle idea. I’m just giving my honest thoughts and frankly don’t expect to make a solid point, more a stream of consciousness ramble about some stuff from my past. Either way I hope you enjoy reading this.
I have a lot of friends who enjoy games with extensive tactical or strategic aspects. This extends far and wide from games such as CS:GO, EFT, Arma, and RS6 to more nostalgic things like WoT, AoE, Civ, and Rising Storm. And I used to be absolutely obsessed with that kind of thing, large scale or team-based planning/endeavors. As a former strategy buff, it was when I entered the world of Steam in 2014 that my world changed forever. When I discovered the genre of survival, and when I made the transition to becoming a massive survival/sandbox enthusiast as well.
However, my roots have followed me. I’ve noticed that the communities of games that are not tailored to team strategy have begun to adapt large meta-communities of RTS and team deathmatch. For example, in PUBG there are lots of custom servers where people enjoy 4-team, 40+ player battles that are coordinated in a very fresh and interesting environment. I totally have a blast doing stuff like that, and that’s when it hit me - out of all the survival/sandbox games I know, Unturned is one of the best at achieving this milsim-like mindset and level of gameplay, yet there’s barely any kind of community for it.
In Unturned, we have a massive, unparalleled variety of weapons, vehicles, game mechanics, locations, and even an active Workshop community. This kind of environment is perfectly tailored to accommodate team deathmatch or milsim, especially in comparison to more niche games in the genre like Rust, DayZ, and Ark. Even the aforementioned PUBG doesn’t match Unturned with our array of vehicles and armament, both combat-oriented and not so much. While my friends who don’t play Unturned are puzzled with how on earth this could be, I’m proud of how the game overall has been executed in this regard.
I guess all I’m saying is, Unturned isn’t meant to be a milsim or RTS or TDM for obvious reasons, but it works stunningly well for such a thing, just like the massive roleplaying community we’ve already garnered (be it the wonderful RP that works or the trashy RP that doesn’t), and I think this kind of adaptability with the game should hopefully not be lost in future iterations of the game. I am alluding not just to future 3.0 updates or even to 4.0, but wherever the road ahead may take us. I personally enjoy this amount of freedom and possibility, and I hope our modders and players do as well.
Thanks for reading. I’d totally appreciate any discussion on the topic, especially in-depth stuff. That stuff felt really good for me to get off my chest!
TL;DR: The sheer beauty of Unturned and how open it is to imagination by the community, and gameplay diversity.