I have a soft spot for post-apocalyptic games, and so do my friends.  We’re scattered across the country now and playing games online is how we hang out.

Recently one of them suggested we try Misery.  It’s an “extraction shooter,” which means you emerge from a bunker, run around and try to collect resources, and then get back home before some kind of timer expires.  I haven’t played the popular Arc Raiders but that game is in the same category

In the case of Misery, the outside landscape is post-apocalyptic Soviet Russia.  The game is a solo project, created by a single developer without use of AI, running on the Unreal Engine.  It’s priced at $12.99 here in the US.  Reiews as “Very Positive” on Steam.

MISERY is a co-op rogue-lite survival game.

You play as PMCs guarding a secret research institute in the Republic of Zaslavie.
The Scientific Institute for Research of the Zaslavie Exclusion Zone (SIRZEZ) was built before the war to study anomalies and artifacts. Over time, these artifacts became the cause of conflict between international military blocs. Neither side could allow artifacts to fall into enemy hands, ultimately leading to nuclear war.

A siren sounds — a nuclear bomb is incoming! You have 60 seconds to grab whatever you can and make it to the bunker. Then, the survival begins. Each day, you venture into the Exclusion Zone to scavenge procedurally generated locations: abandoned military bases and research stations, radioactive wastelands, and ruined cities.

We jumped into it without reading much about it, and this initially proved a little frustrating.  I expected the usual “start with a weak weapon and then slowly improve your character,” but with Misery you start with no weapon and you don’t find them easily.  Over the course of 4 hours’ play, the three of us managed to save about 270 rubles, and many firearms cost that much.  Indeed, the game is a bit of a grind early on because loot is scarce.

It’s also a little confusing what’s going on around you.  But your knowledge and the world both evolve rapidly.  Every few minutes, there’s an incoming nuke, and you have to race back to the bunker.  When you emerge, the map has completely changed.  There is some weird, alternate-reality horror-show elements (monsters, “anomalies,” etc.) as well as good old-fashioned radiation and bandits.  You’re also constantly battling thirst and hunger, and depending on what you do, insanity.

As you find loot, you bring it back to an underground store where you can barter and slowly improve your character and your bunker.  Everything from power generation to weapons to protective suits are available, rendered in glorious…well, not quite glorious but suitable Half Life-level graphics.

What We Liked

Running around in a wild Chernobyl-like world is fun. Because of the anomalous horror-movie like elements, it feels fresh every time.  When we paused after 4 hours, we felt there was a lot more game to play.  It was fun to emerge from the bunker each time and wonder what had changed and what new things we were going to see.  There was always something different.  Will it always seem that way after multiple play-throughs?  Maybe not, though the procedural generation means it’ll always be different.  Based on trailers and video reviews, there’s a lot of elements we haven’t encountered yet.

There’s a lot of Russian culture – domovoys, Russian language labels, all the weapons are Russian, etc.  It really feels like you’re stumbling around 1980s Soviet Russia.

We haven’t gotten into crafting yet but it’s obvious there is an in-depth system and a lot of things you can make.  Some of the screenshots show amazingly detailed and customized bunkers.

What We Didn’t Like

No map!  This was a huge point of frustration because at regular intervals, you are required to return to the bunker in 60 seconds or you’re vaporized.  Since the “outside” is procedurally-generated and changes after every event, you can’t really learn landmarks.  You get a compass, but you have to mentally track your location in relation to the bunker.  Since the goal is to rapidly search a wide area to assemble resources, losing track of the bunker entrance is quite easy.  We resorted to constantly saying “are you near the entrance?  can you whistle (visual ping) so we can find it?”  Adding a horizon marker that shows the direction to the bunker entrance seems like a table-stakes creature comfort.

I also don’t care for games where you lose all your stuff when you die.  I get that is part of the “roguelike” appeal, but since finding and assembling resources is such a grind, I’d rather just be respawned back at the bunker with some other penalty.  It’s going to be grind no matter what.  Maybe they could implement a hardcore mode for those who want this kind of play.  Getting everything together to truly improve your character – clothes, carrying equipment for more inventory slots, better weapons, etc. is not trivial, and to lose it all because you lose track of the entrance is unneeded tedium.  I know some people would consider this “part of the challenge” but I’m more about exploring and having fun than trying to gain any “I beat the game” glory.

I’d also prefer that resources were about one notch more plentiful, as well as inventory space.  I’d like to find a little more stuff, get access to better weapons sooner, and have better fights sooner, and not be so limited on what I can carry around.  It seems odd that you can fight a bandit, kill him, but be unable to take his weapon.  Likewise, there are places where you encounter soldiers apparently frozen in time due to some anomaly.  You can whack at them with a cleaver and draw blood, but you can’t take their weapon or protective gear.

Most of the combat we encountered was fighting a lone monster.  I’d like to see roving gangs, some tactics, and the time to do things like ambushes, raids on fortified positions, etc.

Perhaps a gameplay mode where you have as much time as you want on the “outside,” but once you return to the bunker, the world respawns (rather than running on a fixed timer) would be a better mechanic.  You’d have the tension of deciding what to fit in your inventory rather than constantly running back to dump.  You can’t really “hang out” topside because you know there’s going to be a 60-second timer starting soon.

There are some UI nits and other minor things that could be polished.  The developer has an ambitious road map and has been releasing updates regularly (most recently April 17, 2026) so hopefully some of the rough spots will be sandpapered off.

Verdict

We had fun, and I think the game’s weird vibe is part of the attraction.  We’re not regularly hanging out in 1980s (or is it 1970s?) Soviet culture, so it was like a “foreign movie” co-op shooter.  Apparently the game is very popular in Eastern Europe as there are a lot of Russian-language comments in the Steam discussion.

I think the map changes were a true highlight.  Emerging and finding a huge crater outside the bunker one time and a Soviet-era apartment high rise the next is a delightful novelty every time.

The core goal to build up your bunker and improve your character makes it more than just a shooter, even if there is no over-arching plot…or really any plot.  I’m not sure I’d find it as enjoyable if I played it single-player, but as shared mayhem with friends, it’s fun.

raindog308

raindog308 is a longtime community LETizen, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, raindog308 runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, raindog308 has a life-long love of German Shepherd Dogs, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, playing guitar, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.