For me, that build up is a big part of the intensity. You need that feeling of isolation, being surrounded, and scraping every thing together. But, if you want to go action jackson from minute one, you can just drop at the fist major city and there will almost always be a dozen or two other people right there. Bum rush to weapons, tons of chaos. There are so many ways to play the game and still be effective. You can win by killing 15 people, but you can also win by never firing a shot or picking up a single item. You can get it pretty cheap with a GMG coupon. I highly recommend it. It has it's early access jank, but god damn is it a fun and thrilling game.