Rooted is reminiscent of survival hits The Last of Us and DayZ – How much of the two is in it?

Rooted was one of the surprise hits at the Future Games Show, held as part of gamescom 2022. Comparisons to games like The Last of Us and DayZ quickly arose on social networks and the media landscape. But how much of the two hits is in the new title?

Survival game Rooted garnered some attention after the title’s gameplay trailer was shown at the Future Games Show.

MeinMMO author Dariusz Müller took a closer look at the known information about Rooted and looks at the comparisons to The Last of Us, DayZ and The Day Before.

However, keep in mind that Rooted has not yet been released at this time. We collect and evaluate the information that has already been published.

Rooted mixes survival with sci-fi

What kind of game is this?: Rooted is a survival game developed by Headlight Studios and scheduled for release on Steam. However, according to the developer, a console release is not out of the question. A planned release date does not currently exist.

Rooted is playable both solo and in co-op with friends. With the latter, however, you have to be careful who or what you shoot at, because like them Steam page reveals, friendly fire could be an issue within the survival game.

This is the background story: Rooted takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. The plot is dated around the year 2100 and features abandoned ruins and forests as well as sci-fi elements.

These gameplay features should get rooted:

• Typical survival elements like crafting and base building
• Colonization of abandoned buildings
• Map consisting of forests and an abandoned town
• Focus on PvE, later PvP
• Animals and humans as PvE opponents
• Map events affecting the world of Rooted

On Steam you can also read the following sentence: “Whether made of steel or flesh, choose your opponent carefully!” This statement suggests that there could also be opponents such as drones or robots made of steel in addition to humans and animals.

Rooted versus survival giants

Rooted has been compared to these games: In the comments on YouTube and on social networks, comparisons were made to the following three games in particular:

• The Last of Us
• DayZ
• The Day Before

Even before the title was released, fans said the competition had to worry.

Strong differences to The Last of Us

Animals instead of zombies: The comparison to The Last of Us (TLOU) in particular is much more sobering than the first look at the Rooted trailer suggests. While we see a third-person character sneaking through abandoned locations and collecting loot, the gameplay should be significantly different.

Let’s start with the most obvious difference: the world of TLOU is full of zombies. It shouldn’t even exist in Rooted. Your opponents are mainly animals and other people. The latter also play a role in Naughty Dog’s hit title, but the lack of zombies is very important.

There’s a big difference between being attacked by a limping hunk of meat and a perfectly healthy bear. There are also drones or robots, which deny a possible proximity to The Last of Us even more clearly.

Open world and base construction instead of story: In addition, in Rooted you roam through an open world, in which you have to survive in the long term and build a shelter to do so.

The Last of Us offers neither an open world nor base construction. On top of that, Rooted is expected to be a lot less story-driven, which may also affect the closeness of the character and the atmosphere.

If you haven’t seen the launch trailer of the TLOU Part 1 reboot yet, you can catch up here:

Similar setting to the Day Before

Similarities with The Day Before: Rooted shares some similarities with The Day Before in that both games aim to retain gameplay elements that many survival games have. This includes aspects such as:

• open world
• Crafting items
• building buildings

In addition, both Rooted and The Day Before should be playable cooperatively or in multiplayer.

Focus on PvE instead of PvP: An important difference between the two survival titles is the relevance of PvP. While Rooted focuses on PvE and wants to add PvP because the community wants it, PvP is an important part of The Day Before.

Zombies in The Day Before: Similar to The Last of Us, the NPC opponents are also a differentiator between The Day Before and Rooted, and again it’s about zombies. In short: The Day Before has them and Rooted doesn’t.

Similar layout of the map: In the trailers and images shown so far, it seems as if both games are pursuing a very similar concept in terms of map design. Both titles are based on an abandoned, post-apocalyptic city.

In addition to the abandoned city or buildings, there are also remote places on the maps of both games, which differ from the asphalt roads and the multi-storey buildings. For example, The Day Before showed an off-road track in a video and Rooted showed some run-down buildings in a more wooded landscape.

Differences to DayZ’s weapon behavior are conceivable

In DayZ we again see very obvious differences from Rooted, but also some similarities, especially found in the genre-specific gameplay elements:

• open world
• Crafting items
• building buildings

Abandoned Open World: The design of the open world is not entirely unequal. Again we see a post-apocalyptic scenario in both titles and associated abandoned towns and buildings and the proximity to forests.

PvP and own servers: One difference, theoretically, is the importance of PvP and the presence of zombies in DayZ. However, both can be disabled on private servers. However, whether DayZ will play like Rooted once it’s released is questionable.

The weapon behavior: One aspect that distinguishes DayZ, which we will probably not see in Rooted in this form: the origin of the military simulation.

DayZ was created from a mod of the military simulation ARMA 3. The weapons in the survival game are played accordingly. The gunplay is not kept simple and uncomplicated, but is reminiscent of hardcore shooters like Escape from Tarkov.

In general, the weapons integrated into the game are kept rather realistic and rarely state-of-the-art. However, Rooted describes itself as a sci-fi survival, which is why the fight against robots and drones is also in the room. If there are appropriate weapons, Rooted could be uninteresting for the majority of DayZ fans.

Summary of similarities and differences

In the following table we summarize the possible differences and similarities between the games described above. However, we will only see if these are actually correct once the game is out.

It is possible that Rooted will get a moving story or realistic weapon behavior, although there is no information on this at the current time (August 2022).

Conclusion: Interesting for survival fans, less so for story enthusiasts

For whom is Rooted interesting? If you like or find DayZ, The Last of Us and The Day Before interesting because of the zombies, then Rooted will disappoint you – the survival game does without them.

The same applies if you expect a story on the level of The Last of Us. Should there be a story at all, the survival gameplay could still be in the foreground.

However, if you’re looking for a game that combines shooter elements with an abandoned post-apocalyptic setting of forests and towns, then Rooted might interest you.

Rooted is aimed at players who like open game worlds and try to ensure their own survival by building their own base or inhabiting abandoned houses.

Since you can search a lot of buildings for this purpose and craft or repair various items, Rooted probably has most of the features that fans of survival games could wish for.

What do you think of Rooted? Do you think the survival title will be a success or do you prefer to wait for the full release? Write it to us here on MeinMMO in the comments!

Another survival game that caused a stir at gamescom is Dune: Awakening. You can find out more on MeinMMO.

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