Medium. No significant story or content spoilers. This review is content-accurate as of 5/17/24, this game is currently in early access. This review focuses more on technical details for those interested in playing. I did not progress past the Manufacturing sector whilst writing this review, but I won't touch on it in this review.
For anyone looking to play the game, I recommend looking at some settings to tinker with. First of all, the game defaults to using TSR at a 25% resolution scaling factor. This doesn't look terrible, but it can increase the frequency of visual artifacts that some players may find distracting. Turning this up should alleviate many issues you could get from scaling, but will reduce performance. I do recommend using TSR since it does look very, very good for an upscaler. I would not recommend FSR over TSR, and I do not believe DLSS is an option in this game as of now.
If you're running an older graphics card, or a graphics card that is a little weaker, I would recommend turning the Global Illumination, Shadows and Reflections settings down, as the "Epic" setting uses UE5's Lumen technology to produce an effect that is not much different from ray-tracing, only in software. I am unsure if this game uses any hardware accelerated ray-tracing, but I think it is a software implementation. Regardless, these settings should affect your performance the most, aside from resolution scaling. Some people have reported a method to help optimize lighting even further by tinkering with engine.ini files, but I did not do this.
On my setup, I can achieve a stable 120-165 frames per second using Epic on all settings at 75% (of 1440p) resolution scaling. I am using an RX 6800 and a Ryzen 9 5900x with 32gb of RAM. Some users have reported stutters occuring between some locations, but I have not experienced any. Overall, this game runs well, but older systems may struggle with some effects.
Review
Abiotic Factor defied my expectations, even knowing I was to expect a survival game within a setting that intentionally calls back to the Black Mesa facilities of Half-Life. Everything from the enemies, to the character design, and the setting which is an underground research facility within a red-colored rocky locale. Saying that Abiotic Factor is taking a lot of inspiration from Half-Life would be a significant understatement. This makes it incredibly fun for someone like me, someone who does quite enjoy the franchise, to play something like this, it has a sort of comfortable vibe despite everything going on. The visual makeup of the game retains a similar (albeit higher) level of detail that the original Half-Life games in terms of textures, but is otherwise using fairly advanced lighting technology that I think looks really good overall.
The game begins with you creating a character. Don't try to get it perfect! You can change your character's appearance any time you want after this tutorial, which sees you being driven to the facility, situated in the middle of nowhere. Once you talk to the security guard, and get your badge, you're then walked through basic mechanics, things you will essentially be doing for much of, if not, the entire game. This tutorial is nice and short, and I think covers enough ground to get you situated into the rest of the game.
Upon completion of the tutorial you're brought to the main menu, and are able to start a new game. There appear to be a lot of elements you can change to make it easier or harder or maybe just different, which is nice. Once making a new save, you are asked to select a "job" and then follow up with traits and points you can allocate for traits, much like Project Zomboid. This seems quite generous, and it is, but a couple of things is that you absolutely must take Wrinkly Brainmeat, which increases your XP gains by 20%, and if you're playing in multiplayer, I think specializing is good. 20% XP gain doesn't sound like much, but some traits that you want to level up as much as possible can take a very long time, and any time saved on that can be a lifesaver. You can have friends specialize in things such as cooking, or combat, so on and so forth, to make the experience more dynamic for everyone playing. It's best to do this with the jobs at your disposal. Dying in this game (at least with default settings)
Starting a game, you may notice a couple of red flags. Your very first task is to talk to a scientist and get your first objective. Why would an open-ended survival game have you getting objectives to complete? Thankfully, these objectives don't necessarily have to be completed within a linear fashion, and, although direct, I feel that this functions in a similar way to The Forest, in which these objectives are simply allowing the player to open the world up to them in segments, and are not the hallmarks of a linear story progression. Regardless, right around the time you craft your first Energy Brick, the game will open up quite substantially, allowing you the freedom to explore the facility, talk to more NPCs, discover new things, and set up your living space for the time being. As in any survival game, you must pay attention to your human needs. Many of these are straightforward, gotta eat, sleep, drink, and in this game you also occasionally need to use the restroom with a little minigame attached to it. Fun! Lastly, you are encouraged to enter the Portal Worlds (one time required, at least), which are worlds that have a complete setting change, and differs in many ways!
I do feel that, at the moment, some of these elements of the game feel more like an afterthought than a mechanic that is engaging. For example, the Strength stat gives you the bonus of being able to properly wield heavy weapons, by carrying over capacity. Grinding this stat was incredibly frustrating, forcing me to run around very encumbered, not being able to collect as many resources as I'd like, in order to use a few weapons. I think that having this upgrade would make more sense for a separate stat or a separate method of upgrading, but some of these bonuses feel somewhat random. Another aspect I feel wears the game down a bit is the awkward combat, a couple of enemies (notably the Peccary) almost have instant attacks that occur, and can be punishing without feeling like a player would have deserved it. This continues to occur with many later enemies, but I think it is at least helped by the fact that you can get much better defensive equipment.
Abiotic Factor is a really fun time. I fully expected this game to be a mostly-joke title, but I found myself a game that I am enjoying and will continue to do so until I have seeped out everything I can out of it. While this game does have a couple issues, I think they could get ironed out by release. Single player is fun, but multiplayer is even more fun. I recommend this game to anyone, or any group, looking for a silly little survival game where you roleplay as HL1 scientists doing... whatever it is they do.
For anyone looking to play the game, I recommend looking at some settings to tinker with. First of all, the game defaults to using TSR at a 25% resolution scaling factor. This doesn't look terrible, but it can increase the frequency of visual artifacts that some players may find distracting. Turning this up should alleviate many issues you could get from scaling, but will reduce performance. I do recommend using TSR since it does look very, very good for an upscaler. I would not recommend FSR over TSR, and I do not believe DLSS is an option in this game as of now.
If you're running an older graphics card, or a graphics card that is a little weaker, I would recommend turning the Global Illumination, Shadows and Reflections settings down, as the "Epic" setting uses UE5's Lumen technology to produce an effect that is not much different from ray-tracing, only in software. I am unsure if this game uses any hardware accelerated ray-tracing, but I think it is a software implementation. Regardless, these settings should affect your performance the most, aside from resolution scaling. Some people have reported a method to help optimize lighting even further by tinkering with engine.ini files, but I did not do this.
On my setup, I can achieve a stable 120-165 frames per second using Epic on all settings at 75% (of 1440p) resolution scaling. I am using an RX 6800 and a Ryzen 9 5900x with 32gb of RAM. Some users have reported stutters occuring between some locations, but I have not experienced any. Overall, this game runs well, but older systems may struggle with some effects.
Review
Abiotic Factor defied my expectations, even knowing I was to expect a survival game within a setting that intentionally calls back to the Black Mesa facilities of Half-Life. Everything from the enemies, to the character design, and the setting which is an underground research facility within a red-colored rocky locale. Saying that Abiotic Factor is taking a lot of inspiration from Half-Life would be a significant understatement. This makes it incredibly fun for someone like me, someone who does quite enjoy the franchise, to play something like this, it has a sort of comfortable vibe despite everything going on. The visual makeup of the game retains a similar (albeit higher) level of detail that the original Half-Life games in terms of textures, but is otherwise using fairly advanced lighting technology that I think looks really good overall.
The game begins with you creating a character. Don't try to get it perfect! You can change your character's appearance any time you want after this tutorial, which sees you being driven to the facility, situated in the middle of nowhere. Once you talk to the security guard, and get your badge, you're then walked through basic mechanics, things you will essentially be doing for much of, if not, the entire game. This tutorial is nice and short, and I think covers enough ground to get you situated into the rest of the game.
Upon completion of the tutorial you're brought to the main menu, and are able to start a new game. There appear to be a lot of elements you can change to make it easier or harder or maybe just different, which is nice. Once making a new save, you are asked to select a "job" and then follow up with traits and points you can allocate for traits, much like Project Zomboid. This seems quite generous, and it is, but a couple of things is that you absolutely must take Wrinkly Brainmeat, which increases your XP gains by 20%, and if you're playing in multiplayer, I think specializing is good. 20% XP gain doesn't sound like much, but some traits that you want to level up as much as possible can take a very long time, and any time saved on that can be a lifesaver. You can have friends specialize in things such as cooking, or combat, so on and so forth, to make the experience more dynamic for everyone playing. It's best to do this with the jobs at your disposal. Dying in this game (at least with default settings)
Starting a game, you may notice a couple of red flags. Your very first task is to talk to a scientist and get your first objective. Why would an open-ended survival game have you getting objectives to complete? Thankfully, these objectives don't necessarily have to be completed within a linear fashion, and, although direct, I feel that this functions in a similar way to The Forest, in which these objectives are simply allowing the player to open the world up to them in segments, and are not the hallmarks of a linear story progression. Regardless, right around the time you craft your first Energy Brick, the game will open up quite substantially, allowing you the freedom to explore the facility, talk to more NPCs, discover new things, and set up your living space for the time being. As in any survival game, you must pay attention to your human needs. Many of these are straightforward, gotta eat, sleep, drink, and in this game you also occasionally need to use the restroom with a little minigame attached to it. Fun! Lastly, you are encouraged to enter the Portal Worlds (one time required, at least), which are worlds that have a complete setting change, and differs in many ways!
I do feel that, at the moment, some of these elements of the game feel more like an afterthought than a mechanic that is engaging. For example, the Strength stat gives you the bonus of being able to properly wield heavy weapons, by carrying over capacity. Grinding this stat was incredibly frustrating, forcing me to run around very encumbered, not being able to collect as many resources as I'd like, in order to use a few weapons. I think that having this upgrade would make more sense for a separate stat or a separate method of upgrading, but some of these bonuses feel somewhat random. Another aspect I feel wears the game down a bit is the awkward combat, a couple of enemies (notably the Peccary) almost have instant attacks that occur, and can be punishing without feeling like a player would have deserved it. This continues to occur with many later enemies, but I think it is at least helped by the fact that you can get much better defensive equipment.
Abiotic Factor is a really fun time. I fully expected this game to be a mostly-joke title, but I found myself a game that I am enjoying and will continue to do so until I have seeped out everything I can out of it. While this game does have a couple issues, I think they could get ironed out by release. Single player is fun, but multiplayer is even more fun. I recommend this game to anyone, or any group, looking for a silly little survival game where you roleplay as HL1 scientists doing... whatever it is they do.