Just don't expect it to be easy. The learning curve for DDA is quite steep and dead bodies litter the conscience of every veteran player, but each one had a reason and each taught a valuable lesson for how to survive. Or just how to not die.

There are dozens of distinct locations to explore, hundreds of items and thousands of things to do. You can spend your time sneaking past a zombie horde to get that last can of beans, spelunking through a science lab for untold treasure or even just cooking yourself a nice meal with the finest apocalyptic ingredients.

Sounds very Fallout, doesn't it? But you could also cut down some trees with your trusty chainsaw to build a log cabin, or take some morphine and jam second-hand bionic implants under your skin until you glow in the dark. Grab some mutagen and grow yourself some wings and a tail. With plenty of skill and certain books you could even put together your very own laser cannon. DDA is a deep ocean of content for you to explore, and the tap of open-source development is on and making it deeper by the day.

The game also has no set goals. Presumably the player would like to survive and grow in strength until they can slaughter their way through hordes with impunity, but they don't have to. Some choose to simply turn off cities and zombies to play the game as a wilderness simulator, or they pick specific starting scenarios to role-play as a knight, schoolgirl, scientist or even a lost BDSM practitioner. Wandering NPCs might give you a quest or stab you in the face, and you can follow quest lines to help fellow survivors.

While most games offer a story and some tools to apply in order to reach them, DDA offers a huge range of tools, and you must supply your own goals. It's a brutal playground and will bring you hours of fun – if you can get over the initial difficulty hump.