- Extensive content and rewarding progression system.
- Compelling story with an immersive atmosphere.
- Enjoyable gameplay with well-designed mechanics.
- Challenging, realistic survival mechanics.
- Tedious resource gathering and crafting.
- Steep learning curve, punishing early-game experience.
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 80% · Negative 20%. Score: 20 / 100
Positives:
- The game offers extensive content, exploration, and a rewarding progression system. Players can enjoy building, crafting, and resource management without excessive grind, making for an engaging and immersive experience. The game's adjustable difficulty and focus on single-player gameplay further enhance its appeal.
- The game features a compelling story set in a unique historical setting, creating an immersive atmosphere. The narrative is well-integrated with the gameplay, encouraging exploration and providing a sense of purpose beyond simple survival. The story is often cited as a key strength, enhancing the overall experience.
- The game is generally well-designed, polished, and enjoyable to play. It offers a smooth and intuitive gameplay loop, with functional menus and adjustable difficulty settings. The game is also praised for its graphics, sound, and overall accessibility.
- The game emphasizes realistic survival mechanics, such as managing time, resources, and environmental conditions. These elements create a challenging but rewarding experience, requiring players to carefully plan and adapt to the environment. The game's attention to detail enhances the immersion and makes the survival aspects feel meaningful.
- The game features diverse and well-designed islands and regions, encouraging exploration and discovery. Each area offers unique resources, challenges, and secrets, preventing the game from becoming repetitive. The game rewards thorough exploration and provides a sense of progression as players uncover new locations and items.
Negatives:
- Resource gathering and crafting are criticized for being tedious, time-consuming, and unintuitive. Resources are often scarce, requiring excessive travel and long wait times for respawns. The crafting UI is cumbersome, and the process often involves unnecessary steps and time-skipping mechanics, hindering immersion and enjoyment.
- The game is considered difficult to start, with a steep learning curve and insufficient tutorials. Players often struggle to understand basic mechanics and face frequent deaths early on. Some reviewers found the survival mechanics to be overly punishing and frustrating, especially in the initial hours.
- The game lacks key features such as multiplayer, FOV slider, and character customization. The absence of multiplayer is a significant drawback for many players, limiting the game's appeal and replayability. Some reviewers also noted the lack of a third-person perspective as a negative.
- Reviewers dislike the game's unconventional resource extraction, where players interact with a menu instead of directly chopping trees or mining rocks. The need to find specific types of trees for different resources and the artificial scarcity of basic materials contribute to a tedious and unrealistic experience.
- The game's graphics and animations are often described as mediocre, uninspired, and lacking polish. Character movements can feel clunky and unnatural, and cutscenes are of poor quality. The lack of animations for basic actions like crafting detracts from the overall experience.
Gameplay:
- The game emphasizes realistic survival mechanics, requiring players to manage resources like food, water, sleep, and health while dealing with diseases, weather conditions, and tool durability. Actions consume in-game time, making time management a critical aspect of the gameplay loop, influencing resource processing and overall progress. Resources respawn over time, encouraging exploration.
- The game features a main storyline that provides purpose beyond simple survival, guiding exploration across a map divided into distinct zones or islands, each with unique resources and challenges. Progression is tied to both the story and technological advancements, encouraging players to explore and establish bases across the archipelago.
- Players can engage in various activities such as hunting, fishing, farming, and building boats to travel between islands. The game incorporates elements from other survival games, offering a blend of familiar mechanics. Resources are generally abundant, encouraging exploration and adaptation to different environments.
- Combat is primarily focused on fighting animals, with basic stab and block mechanics. Some animals are more dangerous and act as guardians, requiring strategic timing and careful approaches. The game emphasizes a 'Man VS Nature' theme.
- The game features a unique mapping system where players must climb to high points to chart the surrounding area. Mapping requires resources like charcoal and rope, and the accuracy of the map depends on the player's altitude. This encourages exploration and strategic planning.
Performance:
- Many players report stable performance, smooth gameplay, and a lack of significant bugs or crashes, even on a variety of hardware configurations. Some older reports of crashes appear to have been resolved by updates, indicating good optimization overall.
- A subset of players experience performance issues, including frame rate drops, freezing, and crashes, particularly in specific areas like jungles or the last islands. Some reviews indicate that these issues occur regardless of graphics settings, suggesting optimization problems.
- Reviews are mixed on the graphical quality, with some describing the graphics as simple but beautiful, while others find them dated or average. This suggests the art style may be a matter of personal preference rather than a technical flaw.
- Some players report slow loading times for item lists and scenery, especially with many items present. Additionally, the character log can become slow to open after extended playtime.
- The game features both manual and frequent auto-saving. One reviewer notes that the save function is 'janky' but functional.
Recommendations:
- The game is highly recommended, especially for fans of the survival genre, with many reviewers drawing comparisons to other popular titles like Green Hell, Subnautica, and The Long Dark. Reviewers emphasize that the game offers a unique and enjoyable experience within the genre, making it a worthwhile addition to any survival enthusiast's library.
- Many reviewers find the game to be worth the asking price, especially when purchased on sale. The game offers a good amount of content and entertainment for the cost, with customizable difficulty settings to cater to both casual and hardcore players. Some suggest that the game is better suited for those already familiar with the survival genre.
- Some reviewers suggest that the game is best enjoyed with friends and that a multiplayer mode would greatly enhance the experience. This indicates that the game may be more engaging and enjoyable when played cooperatively. However, the game is still considered suitable for solo play.
- Several reviewers express concerns about the game's current state, citing issues such as bugs, lack of polish, and balance problems. Some suggest waiting for further updates or a sale before purchasing, while others recommend skipping the game altogether in its current state. Customizable difficulty is available, but doesn't address core issues.
- Many reviewers express their hope for future content, including DLC and a potential sequel. They believe the game has a strong foundation and could be even better with additional content and features. This indicates a positive overall experience and a desire to see the game expanded upon.
Miscellaneous:
- The game is set in the 16th century during the Age of Discovery, focusing on a Spanish explorer's search for the Fountain of Youth in the Bahamas. The story is revealed through ruins, murals, and the trails of shipwreck survivors, with the main character being Spanish.
- Players must survive on a South Sea island after being shipwrecked, exploring surrounding islands by building rafts or boats. The game world consists of multiple islands to explore.
- The game features comprehensive crafting mechanics where everything has a purpose and builds upon each other. Skills improve passively through actions, unlocking special abilities.
- The developers are no longer adding new content to the game, and there are rumors that development has ended. The game also lacks official mod support.
- The game includes underwater exploration, where players can harpoon fish and fight sharks and jellyfish. The graphics are stylized, similar to Subnautica.
