Hello everyone. I hope you are all enjoying a festive holiday weekend filled with food, fireworks, and, of course, gaming.

I was thinking about which games I would play this weekend and some of my old favorites, of course, came to mind. As many of you know, I frequently play 7 Days to Die with fellow GiN columnist Vincent Mahoney and really enjoy some of the crazy shenanigans we get up to in that open world. But I was looking for something new, maybe still in the zombie genre, when I started to see ads for a title on Steam called Bodycam.

Now, the core gameplay for Bodycam looked to be hyper realistic, like you were watching real camera footage from a shootout. That immediately intrigued me as I am always looking for realistic shooters to play.

But I got even more interested when those ads told me that the developer of Bodycam, Reissad Studio, was adding a zombie mode, very much like Call of Duty does with all of their new releases. Given the already realistic gameplay, I figured that adding zombies would be a pretty terrifying experience. So, I loaded it up and got ready to enjoy it over the long July 4th weekend.

I jumped into my first game of Bodycam, and I have to say that my first impressions were suboptimal to be kind. I realize that this is an early access game on Steam, so it’s not meant to be perfect. But there is actually nothing that tells new players what to do, how to play, or even what the various mission goals are. Couple that with the fact that the music is mixed louder than jet engines on full takeoff, and you have a recipe for a bad first impression. A new title doesn’t need to hold my hand for everything, but a little signposting would not go amiss.

From what I saw on the Steam page, Bodycam has a lot of potential. So, I stuck with it and gave it another try. The only options I had from the main menu was to join a server or host one. So, I jumped in on a random game that was already in progress. Here things started to look up. The ads were truthful, that is for sure. Everything looked real. There is no heads-up display which seemed appropriate for body camera footage.

Unlike when I play Call of Duty or even 7 Days to Die, there is no high-speed sprinting and sliding around in Bodycam like you see in movies. The action was slow and all you can hear is the nervous breathing of your character. I was pretty excited at that point and ready to figure this thing out when I was abruptly shot and killed by another player. I was a bit confused as I thought I was looking for zombies, and they don’t normally shoot back (other than in Stalker 2).

I respawned and gunned down someone else, maybe the same person who had shot me, and bought myself a little time to take stock of what was happening. I picked a direction and just started walking down a creepy hallway. I gunned down someone else who popped into my view and assumed that I was in a server that featured just traditional first-person shooter gameplay. Then I heard it, the telltale groan of a zombie somewhere off in the distance.

As I got closer, I saw that there was something not quite human shambling a floor below me. I unloaded my weapon on it and shot it until it stopped moving. Great, I’m actually in a zombie game, I thought. But before I could celebrate, I got shot by someone else yet again and died.

I admit, I got a little bit angry. Most of that is probably on me for not understanding what in the heck was happening. But the previously mentioned signposting could have helped if Bodycam had any at all. If I could make one suggestion to the developers, maybe create two server types where one is focused on just killing zombies and another that has zombies and hostile people in the mix. Or maybe one where friendly fire is turned off, something like that. I think a lot of folks would enjoy the zombie hunting, upgrading their weapons, and generally surviving inside that creepy asylum without PvP players sneak killing you every few minutes.

While my initial foray into Bodycam was a bit frustrating, I do want to say it has a metric ton of potential. I have not EVER felt as stressed out or paranoid while playing in my life. Bodycam has been twice as scary as any horror title I have reviewed for GIN. The graphics are very close to lifelike, and the sound effects just add to the tension.

I will be braving Bodycam all holiday weekend for sure and will keep an eye on it as it continues to develop. I will also write a formal review for GiN later on and look forward to how this amazing title evolves over time.