I think Overland deserves a lot of credit for how understated it all is, even if that's sometimes to its detriment.
The story here is simple: an alien meteorite has crashed into Earth and society has collapsed as the infestation spreads. Our characters are heading west across the United States, looking for... answers? Hope? Some sort of catharsis? That's really up to you. A couple of randomly generated lines make up each person's backstory, and the rest is up to how the game unfolds from there. It gives just enough crumbs of small story beats throughout for me to color in the rest in my head.
Ross stole a flashlight early on from a group of traders. They reacted poorly, but he and Joel got away easily. Still, being marked a thief (literally, in the game's menus) never sat right with Ross as he would comment on it frequently. He and the crew avoided traders for a while, and when they did happen upon one he let Joel or Violet do the talking. Ross stayed in the car. Ross hates tomatoes. Ross is a thief.
When stories play out like that, the game really sings. Sometimes though I wish the game had a little more to say. Randomly generated conversations started to feel similar to one another as we got further down the road. Enemies and items are inscrutable, which fits with the survival aspect of the narrative, but the deeper I journeyed into alien territory the more I just wanted to know what certain things would do. It was fine on normal difficulty (with the ability to restart levels if things got too off the rails) but I could see how it would get old on a harder difficulty and hurt replay value.
Overland is entirely worth playing once at the very least. If the art style or unique sound design are drawing you in, I say hop in and enjoy the ride.
The story here is simple: an alien meteorite has crashed into Earth and society has collapsed as the infestation spreads. Our characters are heading west across the United States, looking for... answers? Hope? Some sort of catharsis? That's really up to you. A couple of randomly generated lines make up each person's backstory, and the rest is up to how the game unfolds from there. It gives just enough crumbs of small story beats throughout for me to color in the rest in my head.
Ross stole a flashlight early on from a group of traders. They reacted poorly, but he and Joel got away easily. Still, being marked a thief (literally, in the game's menus) never sat right with Ross as he would comment on it frequently. He and the crew avoided traders for a while, and when they did happen upon one he let Joel or Violet do the talking. Ross stayed in the car. Ross hates tomatoes. Ross is a thief.
When stories play out like that, the game really sings. Sometimes though I wish the game had a little more to say. Randomly generated conversations started to feel similar to one another as we got further down the road. Enemies and items are inscrutable, which fits with the survival aspect of the narrative, but the deeper I journeyed into alien territory the more I just wanted to know what certain things would do. It was fine on normal difficulty (with the ability to restart levels if things got too off the rails) but I could see how it would get old on a harder difficulty and hurt replay value.
Overland is entirely worth playing once at the very least. If the art style or unique sound design are drawing you in, I say hop in and enjoy the ride.