Breathedge

Comparisons have been made to Subnautica and this seems to be a fair statement when looking at the first 3 to 5 hours of the game. You start with nothing on you and a limited means to explore due to a small oxygen tank. This is the peak of interesting gameplay mechanics as I enjoyed planning my trips and what to take with me on the journey back and setting up strategically placed oxygen stations to help me reach further areas. Once you reach act 2 though the tedious nature of these actions starts to wear you down. Distances you need to travel become further away and although your oxygen supply and means of travel should be improving as well it doesn't save the game from its durability system which seems designed to waste as much of your time as possible. At a time I would hold about 5 tools, 5 large oxygen tanks to refill with on the fly, 4 bottles of water and 2 packs of food. This alone made my already small inventory even smaller when heading out to collect new items. What makes the game feel even more tedious is navigating these long distances only to have to backtrack because this 1 particular tool you needed only had 1 durability left on it when you needed 2, or you discover a new blueprint, make it all the way back to your crafting station and then have to scour everywhere you can to find a single item. A common loop to find yourself in is needing a tool for a job but you can't craft it because you need a tool to retrieve a different item which you can't get because you haven't collected the resources to create the tool needed to get THAT item. Without some form of wishlist feature, keeping track of items is a nightmare. In terms of story its semi interesting, but a bit convoluted (likely on purpose) and sarcastic. The humour does work sometimes but the A.I companion needed to be turned down by about 75%. Otherwise the sights you see are very pretty to look at and the game ran without a hitch. Not fully committing to its promising start only hurt the game.

I enjoyed the game and can recommend it to everyone who likes survival games. First off this is one of the better Early Access games I've played so far. The game ran stable and smooth the hole time. Had no bugs, framedrops or other technical issues. As others have mentioned before, the game is pretty similar to Subnautica but not in a bad way. The inventory system is basically the same but in my opinion there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. I actually liked it. The graphical style, which is very well done, is one of the things that sets it apart from other Survivalgames. My favorite aspect of the game is definitly the humor. Sure dark and dry isn't suitable for everyone but man did I laugh my ass off. The controls are overall good but the fact that you lose momentum while flying through the vacuum of space was a bit disappointing. It's not a big deal but if you're interested in orbital mechanics it feels wrong (more like swimming through a viscous liquid). All in all the first episode made a very good impression and left me hungry for more. If RedRuins Softworks brings as much content as Unknown Worlds did for Subnautica over the years, I will not regret the 15 € for one second.

I played for about 2 hours before giving up. It's like Subnautica is space, which is cool, but I got the sense that the designers ran into a brick wall at a certain point and gave up on finding gameplay solutions to gameplay problems. The overarching issue for me is the constant jokes, which barely keep their head above "monkey cheese fart" levels of desperation. If you've ever met someone whose inability to let a moment of silence pass and frantic need to be liked have combined to cause them to recite one of a million rote jokes they got from a joke book, then you have met this game. It's exhausting and unfunny and sucks all the air out of the room. This sensibility bleeds over into the design, where they game has you build at least one milestone building that requires a lot of resources, but does absolutely nothing. The thing is even called something like Pointless Station of Gatekeeping. Unreal. If the game is going to be self-aware enough to lampoon the survival-crafting genre, but not enough to either escape its conventions or improve upon them, then it's just insulting both its audience and creators. It's a sensibility that pervades the rest of the game. Jokes are made about how one crafted tool is pointless but exists because the animator didn't want to do a more complex animation for its base material (scissors on a stick vs just scissors). The tedium of having only uhhh 30? 60? 90? seconds to explore the vacuum before going back to the single available airpocket to craft or store resources is made worse by a constant stream of boneheaded jokes from your AI assistant. I quit after about 2 hours of this endless haranguing, leaving the player character to his own devices in favor of something less inherently stupid. In other words, I was literally annoyed to DEATH. Which I'll concede is a feat, of sorts. But who dedicates several years of their life making something and then goes out of their way to shit on both themselves and their audience?

TLDR: If you liked Subnautica, survival crafting and goofball humor- Buy This Game! You just wanted to give your Uncle a nice send off.... But then the ship exploded! Now you're floating about, not knowing which way is up and wondering if you really should eat the synthetic meat... Turns out there was a lot more going on in the dark corridors of the funerary ship before the accident and now it's spread out in the openness of space, waiting for you to find the dirty secrets as you hopefully float towards rescue. What can you expect? Childish humor ranging from fart jokes too more adult funnies. A linear story with branching side jobs (hey it kinda has to be linear, your crashed at one end and have to make your way to the other end). Lots of exploration and crafting. You can now build your own space station. Some light combat and blowing stuff up! LOTS of references to pop culture in funny ways (SpaceX, Aliens, Game of Thrones and more. Is 2001 in there? Maybe.) Some 'needs improvement' stuff: Inventory management blues. At least things auto-sort for you. Still lots of different items to manage but that can be expected from crafting/survival games (has any game gotten it perfect yet?). Need a better way to manage 'Tasks', they all seem to pile up as you explore and can make the screen busy. Some game mechanics are a bit hard to find and not explained very well. I.e. Why is my space station getting holes in it? How can I build a vehicle? Can the toilet really give me random items? Why the heck would I need a soil analyzer in space? There is some explanation in the game menus but who usually goes looking in there first? Some game goals are pointed out a little too quickly by your friendly suit AI. Overall this game has been an awesome experience despite a little space turbulence!