I've heard this game compared to Valheim, and to me that comparison rings false. It's a topdown game like Diablo, focused on skill trees of different bolts and blasts to shoot at your enemies, buried beneath layers of deeply misguided crafting, survival and base building. Fun boss fights kiting mobs around as you sling spells and dodge, spread out between hours and hours of punching rocks and trees to upgrade your trousers to the next tier.
Notably, there's no element of procedural generation. The map is always the same. While you are pushing deeper into the world as you play, it's not exactly explorative as you always have the map laid out before you. There are base building elements but they're more akin to Dungeon Keeper than Minecraft, you can decide which squares your single-story Castle Dracula will occupy, but there isn't the kind of creativity you might find in other crafty survival games. This is what makes the Valheim comparison odd to me, since creative architecture and sailing out into the unknown were pivotal elements of that game that are more or less completely absent here.
For me, the skinner box elements were simply unbearable. My heart sank when, in the first five minutes, the game compelled me to seperately make trousers, gloves, a shirt and shoes out of bones. I played with five friends, and we got as far as building a servant coffin (after crafting a sawmill to make a forge, to make a crafting table, to make a tanning table, to make a grinder, to make a research table, to make a blood altar) and then had to wait 90 real-world minutes to progress. Someone asked what we're supposed to do now, what we're actually moving towards, and nobody could answer.
I played in early access (May 2022) so possibly the game will change and improve over time.
Notably, there's no element of procedural generation. The map is always the same. While you are pushing deeper into the world as you play, it's not exactly explorative as you always have the map laid out before you. There are base building elements but they're more akin to Dungeon Keeper than Minecraft, you can decide which squares your single-story Castle Dracula will occupy, but there isn't the kind of creativity you might find in other crafty survival games. This is what makes the Valheim comparison odd to me, since creative architecture and sailing out into the unknown were pivotal elements of that game that are more or less completely absent here.
For me, the skinner box elements were simply unbearable. My heart sank when, in the first five minutes, the game compelled me to seperately make trousers, gloves, a shirt and shoes out of bones. I played with five friends, and we got as far as building a servant coffin (after crafting a sawmill to make a forge, to make a crafting table, to make a tanning table, to make a grinder, to make a research table, to make a blood altar) and then had to wait 90 real-world minutes to progress. Someone asked what we're supposed to do now, what we're actually moving towards, and nobody could answer.
I played in early access (May 2022) so possibly the game will change and improve over time.
2 Comments
this is comparable to valheim in that everyone will forget about it in 2 months when the hype dies and no one will want to play it in the future.
karlemil
1 year ago