After a couple more games....
This is a fairly challenging game, with a tendency for a little too much RNG bullshit. The closest I've made it to finishing is 4 days to Canada.
Basically, everything is bound to fail eventually. Your car, despite repairs, probably won't last more than a couple days. And once you get on foot a couple things tend to happen:
-You get "haha lose stuff" events you can't control for.
-You zombie events that just straight up take life from you, no chances to evade or resist it.
-You get ambushed by bandits constantly, which equals "haha lose stuff" or "haha lose life."
-You get put into a Siege Mission where the odds of all your NPCs getting eaten are very good.
There will always be another event to get another car, eventually. It's a matter of how many times you can deal with that level of adversity before you're just tapped out.
I went through....7 party members? In one playthrough, that's how fast you can lose them to hordes. The density and aggressiveness of the hordes just goes up the closer you get to Canada, to where exploring, which is the bread and butter of your resource gathering, starts becoming insanely risky. Your stats, your guns, none of that really holds a candle to just the sheer numbers of zombies that show up late game. It's very easy to get cornered and, if not lose an NPC, die yourself.
There's a meta leveling mechanic where the perks characters start with get more effective as you "train them" between games. The training doesn't do much for you during your playthrough but once those perks get leveled I can see a lot of the game getting a lot easier.
But for some bullshit events, at any rate. "Oh no, zombies! Drive around? "Yes." Op, you got lost for a day, lose a fucking week's worth of driving in gas." Ohoho, now your car is out of fuel and you're on foot. Ohoho, now you're raided by bandits. Ohoho, now you're dead.
Fun game except for that stuff.