Unturned

Gamemodes

Unturned features several different gamemodes, all of which consist of the same basic concept of zombie survival. The game also has multiple difficulty settings.

Survival (Singleplayer)

The game starts by dropping the player off on a map of their choice. (Prince Edward Island (PEI), Yukon, Washington, Russia, Hawaii, or a custom one made by the community, or the player.) With nothing in their possession, players must find weapons to survive against zombies, as well as find supplies to keep them from dying of starvation, thirst, disease, or in the case of Yukon and other winter maps, cold. As the player progresses through the game, they gain experience points from killing zombies or gathering resources, which can then be used for boosts and for crafting.

Survival (Multiplayer)

Unturned's multiplayer survival mode allows multiple players to play together on the same map. Players can choose to team up to defend against the randomly spawning zombies, and to collect items, or players can choose to battle each other, so that they do not have to share the items. The game also has a feature where the player can be in a group with friends in a form of "team". This "team" gives player the ability to see each other on the map as well as open doors owned by other members of the group, as well as disabling friendly fire among members of the group. This also allows sharing of other locked items such as cars and lockers

Arena (Multiplayer)

Arena mode is a gamemode in Unturned that is only available to play in multiplayer. The gamemode spawns players in a central spawn point in the middle of a map, where players run to collect items - such as medical supplies, weapons, and ammo - from a point in the center of the map. Players must then either spread out from the center of the map, or stay in the center and battle each other. The group feature also allows teams to kill other players together, as well as disabling accidental friendly fire. Arena mode is won by the last person, or team alive at the end of the round. Players are either killed by each other, or by the map border, which contracts and kills all of the players outside of it, to force players into the center of the map to battle. This feature was implemented to prevent the round from going on for too long.

Horde (Multiplayer)

Horde Mode was previously an alpha gamemode in Unturned 3. While it is still able to be acquired through the use of the Workshop, it is otherwise currently unavailable. In Horde Mode, players fought off waves of zombies. The player obtained points whenever they killed a zombie, and the points could be used to buy items from Buy Nodes. The Water, Food, and Immunity status bars were removed.

The player always spawned with a Colt and three Colt Magazines.

Easy

In easy mode, items and vehicles spawn 50% more often than on normal mode, and zombies spawn less often and deal less damage.

Medium

In normal mode, items, vehicles, and zombies spawn at the normal rate (the rate set by the creator(s) of the map), zombies deal normal damage, and all features of the user interface are available.

Hardcore

Hardcore mode was a gamemode in Unturned version 2.0. It was very similar to the singleplayer survival gamemode on Hard difficulty, but had several changes, including 50% reduced item and vehicle spawn rates (as compared to normal mode), the removal of several features found in the UI in easier modes, and zombies that deal more damage to the player(s) (as compared to normal mode).

Downloadable Content (DLC)

Unturned offers a $4.99 DLC package known as the Permanent Gold Upgrade. The Permanent Gold Upgrade allows players access to gold colored cosmetic items, such as gold clothing and weapons. The upgrade also allows players access to Gold exclusive game servers, which only allow players who have bought the DLC to join. The Permanent Gold Upgrade can be purchased and downloaded from Steam.

Groups

In Unturned, Steam groups are used by players to 'ally' themselves with other players, to diminish the risk of accidental friendly-fire (except from explosions). This feature is only used in multiplayer, and works for both Survival and Arena gamemodes. The reputation system also affects all group members as a whole, so for say if one group member kills a person on sight, all members will have decreased reputation, and if a group member does some act to gain 'reputation', the reputation of all group members will be boosted.

Community-made content

Unturned allows players to create playable worlds for unturned, known as 'maps' using an in-game editor, and allows them to publish these maps on the Steam Workshop.

Development

Unturned was developed by Nelson Sexton, also known as SDGNelson (in Steam) and DeadzoneZackZak (Roblox), an eighteen-year-old from Canada. Sexton started his career with Roblox development, creating two of the most popular games on the Roblox site, Battlefield and Deadzone. Deadzone, was a zombie-survival game similar to Unturned which is no longer available in Roblox. Unturned was originally listed under Steam Greenlight as Unturned 2.0. It was successfully Greenlit on the 28th of May 2014. The game is continually being updated and fixed to add more items, features and mechanics.

The most recent map, "Russia", was the first time another person besides Nelson Sexton was credited for work on something in the game. Credit was given to "Justin 'Gamez2much' Morton" and "Mitch 'Sketches' Wheaton" for work on the map itself, "Alex 'Rain' Stoyanov" for creating most of the new vehicles, and "Amanda 'Mooki2much' Hubler" for work on structures and objects.

On November 22, 2016, Nelson created a post titled "Postcard from Hawaii" on the official blog for his company "Smartly Dressed Games". He stated that a team of community mappers are working on a new Hawaii map. According to the blog post, the four community mappers are "Rain, Spyjack, Mooki2much and Gamez2much".

Reception

According to Kotaku, Unturned was one of the most popular games on Steam in mid-2014. Both Kotaku and Rock, Paper, Shotgun characterized the game's popularity as unexpected, since the game is mainly developed by a single person without a major studio's resources.

On July 17, 2014, PC Gamer published a review of the game saying that while "Unturned has few real ideas on its own" it is a simple, accessible survival simulator that one may enjoy provided they can "stomach the low production values"; however, the author adds that with Nelson constantly updating the game, it is expected that many more features may be added.

As of December 2016, Unturned had a user rating of 92% positive from 243,000 users, on Steam.