** Closed Beta Review (I won a beta-key) ** Those bastards put her in a cage and left. They asked and we delivered. I wanted, but could not decide otherwise. Helpless and alone with only a glimpse of hope my crew had landed in a hostile galaxy full of strange aliens. The Meorcl, who literally get in your head forcing your decisions, are only one of many aliens in The Long Journey Home. The game is awesome. I had the opportunity to play it in the closed beta and here is what I think: This game does not focus on a single super awesome mechanic slowly expanding it as you play. It is all about stories. The story of your crew members, of the aliens and yours. It is quite a challenge to keep your shit together and focus on the one long term goal: Getting home. Content At the beginning you choose four crew members out of 10 and every one of them has unique interactions with their colleagues and the artifacts that you can find. The galaxy is generated with a seed you can define at the start and always contains four out of eight major alien races and some smaller alien races. You will find many many quests ranging from small errands to galaxy changing revelations. There is an incredible amount of content. After 50+ hours I had not yet seen all major alien races! Let alone the many quests, alien characters and crew member relations I still have not experienced. It looks beautiful, has its own style, exceptional writing and an amazing soundtrack. Oh and there are tons of cool pop-culture/game references to enjoy! Gameplay I don't want to describe too much of the gameplay here, because watching a let's play or stream for that is far better. Basically there are five layers: The galaxy map (chose your way through the galaxy), the star system navigation (get to and orbit planets with as little fuel as possible), the encounters (fight alien ships in space - kinda sid meiers pirates style), the planets (lunar lander style) and the conversations/visits (dialog system, which is not based on multiple choice) All of them work very well with the theme of the game. Space is a dangerous place. The navigation and landing may seem clunky at first, but they are really not. Once you get the hang of the physics you will soon orbit planets in no time and master most landing missions with minimal damage. Difficulty If you expect an easy play-through, because I said it is about stories, you're very wrong. It is really hard to get home to Earth. Your ship is slowly falling apart (nearly every jump damages a ship module) and your crew will suffer injuries. The developers did a great job to prevent instant death. Instead you will slowly get to the point where you can't continue your journey, and it is always because you made too many mistakes along the way. This may be the core of the game: Fight versus the inevitable. Try again and again to just get one sector, one star system closer to earth with hope to find valuables that bring you even further. The last sector - without spoiling anything – is special. It is a challenge of its own and personally I don't like it. Even though I understand why it is designed that way, it feels somehow disconnected to the rest of the game. At least if you made it to the last sector and then even make it home, that feeling is far more rewarding than just reaching the last gate. Conclusion / tl;dr If you don't enjoy a difficult challenge, can't stand science fiction or only like shooters, then this game is not for you. Otherwise a nail-biting (and funny) experience awaits you in The Long Journey Home. When you finally manage to get home, you will probably want to try again with a different crew, ship or seed to explore even more and unravel all the hidden mysteries. Good luck!
