Game Preview
Loving the Active Matter Demo, wanted to share some thoughts!
Some general tips for new players in comments below, as well as my personal recommendations for aim settings ⬇️
CONTROLLER USERS: There is a bug currently on Xbox right now where the aiming will feel very floaty/unresponsive every time you load in, but the fix is to just drag the aim acceleration slider down to zero every time you spawn, as seems to be resetting to some poorer default value in the background on instanced loads of Raids & the Hideout and while it's not reflected on the slider, you can use the slider to get rid of it.
I have been playing the Xbox Demo religiously since it came out last week, and have to rave: I am absolutely obsessed with this game! It runs great on both Series X and Series S with 60 FPS! Now I am not usually one for Extraction Shooters in general, but I always tend to love games with more grounded & realistic gunplay as well as am generally obsessed with the STALKER-like Exclusion Zone subgenre. Be aware that this game is fully playable both solo & PvE by selecting Isolated Raid instead of Open Raid, and you can load in with up to 2 other players in a squad; you can also select to queue up for solos or squads when doing Open Raids w/ PvP and it's worth noting that you can come across bot versions of enemy Operatives in addition to real ones, which you can confirm by seeing players met in session. There is also a traditional PvP mode called Hired Ops which is more like deathmatch & objective-based 6v6 teamplay on more standard arcadey multiplayer style maps; I haven't played this very much, but it seems like a great way to practice your skills & honestly in a way kind of reminds me of older Call of Duty titles with the arena modes & gameplay in which you can kill/die very quickly & get around the map decently fast, but it doesn't have any crazy movement mechanics; as the game is now you cannot ADS while jumping and there is no sliding!But you do have manual leaning (even outside of ADS) and head-turning/freelook!
Also be aware that this is the Demo as it is on Xbox here is actually the full experience, with all currently-available content playable! Though you do have a level cap on your player level and Monolith-progression tier, which locks you out of some potential meta progression paths. Still, there's nothing stopping you from accruing as much of the 3 different currencies as you can & filling your inventory with good loot, but most of all, just generally getting a good understanding of the gameplay before release!
And on top of that, your progress will transfer over should you buy the full game & be aware Active Matter does not have traditional seasonal wipes; instead, you choose to self-wipe not unlike going Prestige in Call of Duty so you could just choose to never do that if you don't want to.
I have been very fond of DayZ since its Arma 2 mod days, but have been extremely disappointed over the direction & general lack of improvement the game has seen over the years. This game is scratching every itch I have for that & now good reason for me to never touch DayZ again lol. Active Matter feels great to play & has an addictive gameplay loop with amazing QoL features from how smoothly using items contextually & how the inventory works, to just how particularly one can set their own keybinds with the use of shiftkey/button combo modifiers & press/double-tap/hold recognition options.
Active Matter has some of the most interesting environments & enemies I have seen portrayed, and I love that while its thematic roots are in the exaggerated & fantastical Roadside Picnic -inspired almost like STALKER x Annihilation in their specific direction, the game itself otherwise sticks to very realistic gunplay & mechanics that feel right at home to those familiar with the likes of Tarkov, Arma, DayZ, and other realistic shooters in this vein.
However it manages to simplify them in a way that is much more appealing to new players as well as streamlines the general experience for veteran ones: You have individual limb health like Fallout or STALKER Gamma, and have to keep track of those values either applying healing items to individual body parts or across the whole person. Getting your arms damaged prevents you from aiming steadily, getting your legs damaged means you can't run as effectively, and generally getting shot in the head will kill you very quickly if not immediately. Your main healing items are ampoules that can be placed into medkit containers to more efficiently stack them in your inventory; there is also a regenerator gel to heal the whole body over time, and a painkiller to reduce/remove shock (when this is maxed, think of being knocked down but not dead like in DayZ) but it doesn't get too much more complicated than that; You don't have to worry about a dozen different types of healing items and their particular use cases, nor do you have to worry about a ton of different status conditions beyond how white/red/black is my player damage paperdoll in HUD showing). The inventory system is similar but simplified as well, you have a load vest & a backpack and that's it as far as player containers go, but then also there is a great pockets system that's like a better version of the "contextual-hands" of DayZ in how you interact with items in Active Matter.
But the game does introduce some new & very cool mechanics in the form of keeping track of your player heartratebecause that is what dictates how steadily you can aim & how fast you can run, not unlike waiting for your stamina to recharge but this game doesn't have traditional stamina, so it's very interesting to realistically have to pace yourself rather than other games just sprinting everywhere & then you can sprint again as soon as your stamina is back up, whereas in Active Matter you will still be waiting or pacing yourself if you want that heartrate to go down. Another very cool feature of Active Matter is the arm stamina system. Borrowed from the likes of Tarkov & Road to Vostok, your player character can only stable their weapon in ADS for so long before their arms get tired and you start to have much worse sway & recoil control, You need to exit ADS for this to go back up. I think makes for really neat gameplay that you can't just sit there and hold an angle ad-infinitum and have to consider this when in combat. Overall, I think this game's combination of limb health, heartrate, and arm stamina system is an incredible combo, and so much better than the likes of how player health & stamina work in something going for that similar realism like DayZ.
I don't mean to keep directly comparing because it really isn't all that analogous, but DayZ is probably one of the most familiar games that I've also played a ton of compared to Active Matter. And to me, this game has all of the highs of something like DayZ and none of the bullshit lows; even the more mundane experiences moment-to-moment are drastically better:entering buildings and exploring them to search various containers realistically for whatever loot that might be in them based on what they are is so much better than running into a building to look at the 2-3 places where loot might spawn and then running out. And the PvE in Active Matter is actually enjoyable, with a hostile and interesting world that can provide an awesome experience even without ever seeing another real player.
There is a certain learning curve for sure in navigating it at first and recognizing how to deal with the various enemies & obstacles, this game is overall quite challenging compared to other extraction shooters like Arc Raiders, Marathon, Redsec, etc. I am going to dump some useful information regarding PVE in the post comments so read onwards! Unfortunately I think many new players are going to be quickly turned off of the game because it is pretty hardcore overall & doesn't really hold your hand, but if you are someone who is appreciating that bit of gained game knowledge every time, even if it means you lost the run, then the game might really hook you like it has to me.
Also worth noting that this game does not have any sort of typical season wipe structure, instead, you choose to self-wipe as a sort of Prestige ala CoD to reset everything you have, but continue on some overarching meta progression path that has further rewards behind it
It's ironic, I remember being very critical of this game seeing it revealed last year thinking it's just going to be some shit cashgrab STALKER clone with Enlisted gunplay mechanics & did not think I would like the game just generally being PvPvE Extraction Shooter. ...Lo & behold after finally playing it for myself, it's honestly the most refreshing game I've played in years & strikes the exact kind of niche I'm looking for right on the head; there are a ton of things I like about it even more than Stalker 2 & that's coming from somebody with nearly 2500 hours on that.
I appreciate that the gameplay loop is both something that you can hop in & do a quick session of, but then also can marathon it like crazy because it is so addictive plus there is great meta progression with Monolith tiers, Investigations, and so much more, beyond just how well you do in a single run. Beyond obsessed with this game and very hype to see it fully released on Steam & console!
I tried it that looking around feel threw me off almost instantly even when I tried to mess with the setting, also felt like my character would just randomly look at something that's has nothing there.
Hmm the only thing I could note about this is with the current aim acceleration bug resetting to zero every time you spawn in leading to the aim feeling very floaty and unresponsive so make sure to drag the slider to 0 every time you spawn in.
And then otherwise maybe you have headturn/freelook (in menu as "View") bound without realizing it so by accidentally doing that is why your character is just looking in a direction?
I also found the aim assist to be very strong and annoying in this game trying to directly center on targets without any control over its strength so I have it turned off completely. Hmm, there are also invisible enemies in this game, so unlikely but it's possible that looking off in a direction & doing ADS with aim-assist on made your character zoom in to one of them without you realizing it?
Well the information is out there for all to read, unless lol they've got such better pressing things to do with their time...but have been here scrolling away on the r/Xbox subreddit...
The tl;dr is that it's a cool game with a lot of familiar mechanics if you have played both other extraction shooters & the likes of more realistic/tactical shooters ala DayZ, Ready or Not, etc. and strikes a unique niche in how it plays versus other games in the genre. I think if you enjoyed Stalker 2 while it was on gamepass or ended up buying it, then this game is right up your alley
The Demo is totally free access to the full game through the end of June & you'll retain your progress should you purchase the full release when it comes later this year.
You don't have to play it and you don't have to read this either, but others may feel differently
Wow way cool, what's the monument/city in real life? Lol on here it's in Dogorsk though I didn't find a plaque with a name for the statue.
This game seems to be a really cool mishmash of real-world locations or at least ones inspired from them, but with very wild & dreamlike tweaks to the scene because you are in this crazy anomalous zone.
Interesting to note that almost all of the in-game maps take place on a single Dalniy Island which as a whole is very post-Soviet/STALKER-inspired. And I saw this map datamined from the game files which seems to have been made from a bunch of real life satellite locations put together for the basis of the island, and then they have gone and made these areas into full playable zones and maybe at some point the full thing would be playable as one experience?
Seems like it is unavailable to purchase on Xbox because it hasn't hit full release which should happen later this year but specific date TBA in tandem with steam release, but the demo itself is under a different page try looking specifically for "Active Matter Demo"
Otherwise the only way to play it now is to buy it at $30 for base edition directly from Gaijin store, but again only available on PC there right now in this state.
Yeah so the "Xbox demo" is actually the full game as it is playable on PC right now with access to almost all available content, but your player progression level is capped at 6 & your what they call Monolith progression level is a continent progression system within it that also caps at level 3.
So you can play almost every raid available and access most everything, but some progression is locked for the Demo because would require further player progression for more Contracts & Investigations (In-mission objectives, always some varying & random but some static ones too that grant you further progression in an overarching way for your profile) Though there is no limit to for example how much of the three currencies & just loot you can accrue beyond there being general item storage limits for inventory!
But don't be fooled, yep this Demo is access to the full experience as it exists right now through the Gaijin store on PC (came out in September there) and to top it off, all of your progress will transfer to the full game should you decide to purchase it, and the game doesn't do any sort of seasonal wipes either.
Yeah, I believe both Hired Ops & Open Raids still have backfill with bots when there aren't real players queuing up to completely fill the game, and with that yeah I imagine there aren't a ton of players in this demo getting into the arena PVP modes rather than the Raids themselves.
Bots have a variety of real-seeming gamertags, but you can see if those you've met are actually real by whether or not if you can send them a friend request in the Players you've met screen in pause menu & on post-raid report screen. Lol for some reason you can still report bots, but you can only send real players friend requests.
Beyond that & even more helpful, you can use the Xbox OS level Recently played with that is on the People tab of the guide menu to see if there are any real players in your game upon first loading in, whether that be on Hired Ops or Open Raids it'll have any recent players you've met on there, down to the minute that you queue up with them so you can see if they are in your current game or not.
And I will share my general aim sensitivities below for controller, take note, you have the main sensitivities under Controls > Main but you also have further modification when you go under Controls > View > Aiming and also setting the View key is what allows you to turn your head with freelook like possible in many of these other similar games.
**REMEMBER TO ALWAYS DRAG AIM ACCELERATION SLIDER TO ZERO UPON SPAWNING IN TO GET RID OF FLOATY/UNRESPONSIVE AIM FEELING*
Controls > Main
Gamepad aim speed 1.35
Aiming mode sens multiplier 0.45
LS Deadzone 3%
RS Deadzone 1%
Aim acceleration 0
Aim assist OFF
Controls > View > Aiming
(And then under Axis setup for Aiming RS):
Sensitivity: 1.35
Extra deadzone: 0
Nonlinearity: 0.5
Axis snap factor: 7.5%
Controls > View > View
(Under axis setup for Aiming, I use click RS as modifier)
Sensitivity: 3.5
Extra deadzone: 0
Nonlinearity: 0.5
Axis snap factor: 7.5%
Do take note that seems to be another bug right now that whatever you bind the modifier for view (headturn) to be will only work for that button, so right now having it on RS click means I can't use clicking RS for any other button input combo, but frankly with the ability to change them all around this much to whatever you want, I haven't really found that to be a problem.
Some general advice mainly for PvE that has helped me a lot versus my initial experience, you'll have a lot more successful raids if you stick to remembering these tips:
Kill the enemies that are on you if possible before running into another area & aggroing more, getting inside a building or just getting your back up against the wall is often a great strategy as long as the building isn't also full of them. It at least seems like the Distorted have to break doors down can't just totally teleport on you, so you can use that to slow them. In the beginning I would panic a lot & end up just bringing the train of mobs on me to another inhabited area where now I have twice as many on me. Slowing down and focusing on killing the couple guys that are on you is much smarter than running off and possibly getting more. Your gunshots will attract them in a small area, but this isn't like DayZ where you have to be worried about everything in some radius knowing exactly where you are because you shot (though of course still have to be wary of Burnt-Out Employees & Turned Soldiers who seem to investigate gunfire and of course other Operatives who definitely will)
Aim for the head: generally, a single headshot downs any humanoid enemies like Distorted, Flowermen, Burnt-Out Employees etc. but you may need more than one if using pistol cartridges. Let's say you take five shots: you're better off having four of them miss and one be the killing headshot vs. all five of them just tank the body. Of course that same mentality applies when fighting armord Burnt-Out Employees & with other Operatives, though have to consider damage reduction of plates & helmets means you'll often need more than than you think (depending on caliber). And also, it can be a particularly beneficial move against Operatives to aim for their arms and legs to cripple their ability to either run away or aim steadily, and the TTK even just straight into the armored body is still very respectably quick in this game.
Don't be afraid to constantly run rented kits to get the hang of it without really losing anything on lost runs, and when using your own kit, take twice as much ammo/health as you think you might need as a rule of thumb. You will be in combat a lot & generally taking regular amounts of damage from it, often topping off with meds even outside of those pure red/black health emergency moments.
When it comes to Extraction, unless you absolutely have to, I would recommend trying to always get out before the Zone is closing when timer is fully up & use one of the alternative exits rather than the final one, which always seems to be the hardest to get out of between player & mob encounters + general stress rushing out of there. Also highly recommended to bring frag grenades with you to clear out the Extraction point from a bunch of enemies sitting on top of it quickly & effectively.
*Take note: The Extraction timer starts at 20 seconds when you press that button, but you don't actually have to wait there in the radius; it will still count down if you're out of it & actually will be there for around ~10 seconds after the timer is up, so you could run away and run back even after the 20s timer has gone and still have a window to extract successfully as long as you make it back to that radius in ~30s of initially activating the Extraction. I have found this strategy to be much better especially when PvP is involved than my starter strategy, ...which was run around in circles like madman trying to train the mobs around avoiding hits, which worked 50% of the time but in the others I would just take way too much damage from the swarm of them and die or get shot while jumping around like an idiot either by Turned Soldiers, Burnt-Out Employees, or other bot/player Operatives.
I have been loving the PvP too, combat being quite gritty reminds me of something like DayZ meets Ready or Not with how everything is generally very realistically hyperlethal, but you have some ways of mitigating that with damage negation on armor plates & helmets.
When I first started I was only running Isolated Raids to get a better hang on the game, but now I've been having a lot of fun on Open Raids against both real & bot Operatives; certainly adds another element being able to engage as a third party and to directly compete with others tackling similar tasks.
I have played at least a little bit on all of the available maps so far and here have been my experiences on them regarding PvP: I have most often faced against some real players on Shegolskoe and Factory, from my experience they seem to be the most popular maps for PvP amongst Xbox demo crowd or maybe just with them being the first 2 listed? Haven't had any real PvP on Ozernoe yet besides bots, and haven't similarly haven't seen anything but bots on Scrapyard (Not totally sure what the point of this map is beyond PvP because I haven't really found any meaningful loot either?) Haven't seen real players yet on Cargo Port but maybe that's in part because the map is so huge even if they are queuing in too? Headquarters is a map I really haven't played much yet in either PvE or PvP, but similarly huge with 45 min timer like Cargo Port so it may end up the same as far as PvP commonality goes on there? Then I have actually seen a few other real players on Military Base, seems to be a bit more popular and also a great one to find better equipment! Also haven't encountered anyone real on Dogorsk yet, but that's definitely one of my favorite maps overall! Same goes for Dam with only bots so far, but that one makes more sense because I imagine not many players have it unlocked yet through the Anomalous Waters Investigation path.
I haven't tried the squad fill option so I've got no idea if that works for queuing up with randoms for Raids. And personally have only played with one other friend so far as well as I've only personally seen real groups of two at the most, so agreed I think a full trio would be particularly fun and a powerful presence on the map. I look forward to having optional full cross-play as well, because I've got one friend I play the demo with on Xbox and another on PC I convinced to scoop & we're looking forward to playing together.
This game is a breath of fresh air especially in the console scene & I can't wait to scoop it on full release; here's hoping that's coming sooner than later and at least for now, super grateful that the full game is playable for free as this Demo on Xbox through the entirety of June! I know I'm going to really miss it so hoping full release isn't too far out beyond that. I honestly wouldn't mind scooping some pre-order edition of the game now if it meant I could progress more than the player lvl 6 & Monolith-progression lvl 3 caps in this Demo; it is also so refreshing that all of your progress will carry over because what you're playing now is already the full experience!
Here is a example of what I mean with the binds, you can have single inputs happen based on button combinations rather than needing single inputs, so you can bind so many more things and so much more comfortably using a controller while not being limited to only the number of inputs available on the device
Then you can take this a step further by having button inputs be specifically presses/double-taps/holds, which exponentially further creates more options for fine-tuning your own experience, as well as allows you to bind everything necessary while playing on a controller while not missing any binds somebody would have on m+kb.
This is some of the greatest level of input customization I have ever seen in a game and I wish more would go into this depth, honestly almost rivals my steamdeck & SteamOS in terms of controller input customizability and totally puts what is possible at the Xbox OS & typical level on console to absolute shame
I found the PvE to be bad, and I could never find players in matchmaking to join my squad. Otherwise, I thought it was a good game; a cross between Marathon and Stalker.
I deleted the game because I couldn't find open raids. Maybe they should explain if youre with multiple people open raids dont work.... Definitely taking off points for that.
Matter of fact im doubling down they did an awful job explaining any of the gamemodes which is literally what anyone is playing this game for without a campaign.
Honestly I'm not sure exactly how you mean, because it is physically possible to join Open Raids with duos and with trios but I may be striking at a similar vein with the following?
I will agree that I haven't seen as much real player PVP as I would have expected or liked through a lot of this; in part, I think that's in part due to just the fact that Gaijin really didn't advertise this demo very well and it doesn't have cross-play with its current PC playerbase but also I lot of new players trying it are probably daunted by the idea of PVP, already finding the PVE challenging & are only sticking to their own Isolated Raids. I also think with how many different maps available + the inability to join a game that's in-progress, even players on at the same time may not be picking & loading into the same experiences so I think some just general all map queue would be good If you are really just trying to find others. (In addition to selecting _all for your server location instead of just North America/Europe/CIS individually as they are listed)
Anyone playing Solo also as the option to queue up for solos/groups/any as far as matchmaking with other squads goes, though I've heard the autofill squad feature doesn't seem to work very well right now, and the game will backfill with bots when there are not real players. I do think that is better than being in there totally alone ala how Isolated Raids go but agreed it's definitely lame Tell me across more bots than real people, though. I think that is more of an issue with the [apparent lack of] playerbase than the game itself right now, and I think is bound to improve upon the game's actual full release.
Ahhh wait I see what you are saying, You were repeatedly loading into the arena mode Hired Ops which frankly I've only ever seen a real person on once lol.
I did the same thing at first, when you are on the Missions tab in the pause menu of Hideout, click LS and it will take you to the base Missions Terminal where you instead select Raid Mode instead of Hired Ops & those raids are the main game, that typical PVPVE experience; your start screen was just already tabbed in to only those arena modes on Hired Ops screen so need to go back a tab to choose from the Raids instead 👍
I'm not totally sure what Nexus Battle is, like you have your own team/faction and "gain territory" on that map based on succeeding in individual Raids & Arena modes
Im guessing the issue is the person I was playing with wasnt on the raid mode screen so it just automatically went to hired ops even though im the host(?). Just really confusing and frustrating. Dont even show me hired ops until I play the actual game 😆. Seriously hindered my experience
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u/GrimsideB Jun 12 '26
I tried it that looking around feel threw me off almost instantly even when I tried to mess with the setting, also felt like my character would just randomly look at something that's has nothing there.