Garena, a giant in the gaming industry, announced the arrival of Undawn, an open-world survival shooter mobile game decorated with eye-pleasing graphics. This is not the first time that Garena has shown his expertise in releasing mobile games; previously, they have successfully launched Free Fire, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Arena of Valor.

Garena previously opened pre-alpha registration for Undawn and has managed to attract more than 10,000 players to register. This game presents a post-apocalyptic world, where the player has to face the attacks of zombies as well as other players who can be a threat.

As one of the lucky ones, the DuniaGames team got the chance to taste Undawn before its official launch. In the following review, we will discuss our experience playing the latest mobile game from Garena. Undawn offers not only excellent graphics, but also challenging and adrenaline-pumping gameplay, forcing players to strategize and fight hard to survive.

Read the full review below!

Trailer Undawn

Undawn Synopsis

In the future, humans find fragments of a mysterious meteorite in a relic. These shards contain special elements that lead to breakthroughs in bionics technology and genetic medicine. However, humans do not realize that these elements will soon tear down their society. Zombies come, ending civilization.

However, hope still exists. On the continent's west coast, a group of survivors called the Raven Squad set up a sanctuary for the remnants of humanity. After years of suffering, Raven Shelter has developed into a prosperous shelter and is growing every day. However, the zombie threat remains, with those infected taking on new mutations, while bandits and outlaws roam the lands, looking for easy loot.

This is when you - a newcomer to Raven Shelter - spring into action. Work for protection, help outposts, and survive in the wilderness, all while dealing with monstrous creatures and humans who have lost themselves to bandits and greed.

Undawn Gameplay

Undawn's premise is by far the most generic depiction of a post-apocalyptic world. You are a survivor who was ambushed by bandits while traversing the world that once existed. Later you will head to the nearest shelter, Raven Shelter, where the leader asks you to go to another shelter to solve their problems and forge an alliance. This is where it all stops. Some of the side missions are quite dark and have quite good storylines.

Undawn is reminiscent of typical battle royale games, but incorporates a survival mechanic that makes it even more interesting and you'll experience a simple action shooter game with limited crafting and building options. Actually this game is similar to Rust which also does the same thing.

It seems like Undawn's developers saw what LifeAfter was doing and decided, "Yeah, let's do exactly this" without considering that NetEase was already moving on to another game that seemed a lot more promising than LifeAfter.

So what seems to have happened is that Lightspeed Studios and Level Infinite took over what NetEase had left behind, while innovating almost entirely. However, Undawn might be an alternative that gamers can try.

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Visuals and Monetization Rewards Contrary to Post-Apocalyptic Themes

Let's talk a little about the store in Undawn. Here, you can spend real money to top up in-game currency which can be exchanged for Gold, which can then be used to purchase premium items in the shop. However, we're not going to belittle Undawn for this monetization practice, but the truth is that the items sold in the shop go against the theme of their game.

Just like in LifeAfter, where the game will sell a number of magical women's clothing items and swimwear even though it is set in a post-apocalyptic world, Undawn does that too. You can buy the weirdest stuff at the Undawn shop - from angel wings to cat ears to bunny slippers to gold-plated AK-47s. It's all there, and it's all very much against the theme of the game. What kind of post-apocalyptic survivor will walk around in a swimsuit? One or two survivors might be funny. But if everyone were wearing swimsuits...

So far, most of the clothing choices in Undawn have pretty much gone with the post-apocalyptic aesthetic with jackets and all, but the presence of flashy items in Undawn mimics a lot of what LifeAfter is already doing. Of course, there is a practice called "Prestiging" where big players buy luxury items to look good. But Undawn can do all of that without making the prestige option conflict so much with the aesthetics of the world as a whole.

If you look at Undawn, it looks more like a playground than a real post-apocalyptic world. Indeed, online games tend to have exaggerated locations and look like playgrounds. But it's really something when you reach Raven Shelter and are confronted by a tough-looking protection guard, only to be greeted by a nurse who looks more like a cosplayer than a real nurse who has to survive.

Straightforward Mechanism

Like other survival horror games, you are required to survive against zombies by looking for survival equipment. However, there is a unique element to this game, namely that you can 'kill' other players you meet to get their tools. The operational buttons in this game are quite complete, from shooting, using secondary weapons such as knives, jumping, running, ducking, and many more.

Not only that, you can also adjust the shooting button, analog to move, and various other features. What's interesting, if you find a vehicle such as a motorbike, you can save it and just use the button to recall the vehicle you got.

However, there are some drawbacks to the buttons provided, for example, there is only one button to use a weapon, because in this game 2 buttons appear simultaneously for weapons 1 and 2. With just one weapon button, you can switch from gun to knife and the like, saving you unnecessary button presses. In addition, controlling a vehicle is still quite difficult and not as smooth as in Free Fire or CoD: Mobile, so it still requires improvement.

Although vehicles can be turned into 'virtual objects' which makes this game unique, this is actually quite unfortunate because it takes away the essence of a survival game, where vehicles should not be used as virtual objects.

Verdict

Overall, Undawn is an online zombie survival game that was actually introduced several years ago through LifeAfter. But it looks like Garena is trying to be an alternative that gamers can try. Even for a mobile game size, Undawn has a fairly large file size, with a total of nearly 10 GB. So make sure you have large and fast internet access so you can play this mobile game.

In addition, in terms of the specifications needed to play Undawn smoothly, it is also quite high. Even just getting a high refresh rate feels quite heavy, so you need to use a flagship class smartphone to be able to play it. So, make sure your smartphone device is also capable of playing Undawn.

For the score from Undawn, DuniaGames gave a score of 4.5/5. Even though there are some drawbacks, this online zombie survival mobile game is really worth trying to play.

So, that's the review about Undawn that you can find out before it's release. Hope it is useful!

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