Skopje ‘83, by Dark-1 and PM Studios Inc., is an open-world zombie survival game plastered with hordes of mutated abominations around every corner. Loot, shoot, and blast your way through the hostile city either as a lone ranger or with friends to accompany you on the journey. 

The game provides little knowledge of what happened around you, apart from a mysterious voice calling you Pioneer. Explore the desolate city in DOM, your mobile bus base, and survive the 7 days before getting a Nuke for lunch. The game was a little lacklustre, not as thrilling as I’d hoped, and I found myself more frustrated, but it could just be me. 

Controls are straightforward, but I found the double-tapping of the directional buttons, such as W or A on PC, to dash, to be tedious when trying to run from a train of abominations chasing me. No matter which part of the city I looted, it seemed pretty bare overall in terms of materials and weapons, leaving me feeling more frustrated than thrilled.

In parallel with this, you also have to keep up with hunger, thirst, and sleep, which adds a further layer of frustration, as it feels more like a chore than a game mechanic. I found the perks to be a bit bare-bones; I never thought they did much to enhance the experience.

While the enemies are pretty easy to combat, when you have bullets, the impact the perks “provided” seemed very minimal. There is no clear indication of where to find better upgrades or gear, and the perks themselves appear when turning off towers (when I eventually found them), levelling or sometimes randomly on the floor as little orbs.

There are also passive and active perks that you can unlock on DOM, as well as other craftables like food, weapons, and healing items, to name a few, but this does require materials that you will need to find, which is the point at which I am stuck.

As mentioned before, there is a multiplayer co-op mode you and three others can enjoy, but I never really got to experience it, as I couldn’t find a lobby when I looked. You only have a certain amount of time in a day, but whatever you loot is carried over to the next day.

You have seven days to survive before receiving a nuke to your face. I found the overall concept of Skopje ’83 quite fascinating, but it fell short of what I expected from an indie version of Borderlands. 

Visually, I found Skopje ‘83 to be quite vibrant and pleasant on the eye, with its comic-book art style and blasts of bright colours throughout the world providing a nice experience amid my frustration. I did have to adjust some graphics settings because of frame drops, as other players have noted on the Steam page. 

Audio, unfortunately, was a different story from the visuals. I found the audio to be pretty repetitive, with only three tracks playing in and out of combat. I’m not saying it wasn’t good, but it definitely could use some improvement. It did aid the game’s ominous feel, but it didn’t provide a thrilling experience for me. 

Overall, I found Skopje ’83 to be ok. It wasn’t thrilling or boring, but it definitely fell short of my expectations. In future updates, some form of indication can be introduced in the game to make it less frustrating and confusing, which will perk this game up a few points. Skopje ’83 isn’t terrible by any means; it was just my experience with it, and you should give it a try and see for yourself. 

Written by: Larry