i guess it's been out for a couple years now as a standalone sandbox, but only recently did they roll out episodes 1 and 2 of an actual 5-episode story mode. ep3 is due later this year. grabbed it on steam for like 9 bucks and have been going nuts over it
story mode starts out with a cinematic of you as a bush pilot flying your exwife somewhere and your plane goes down. you wake up amid a howling blizzard and the burning wreckage of your plane and there's a chunk of metal stuck through your hand. you're rapidly losing both body heat and blood. you yank the metal out and find a piece of cloth to use as a bandage, then stagger into a nearby cave to wait out the blizzard. from then on it's a constant struggle for survival - manage your body heat, forage for food and water, avoid hostile wildlife, find useful tools in abandoned cabins, hunting stands, and homesteads. once your continued existence is on stronger footing, start looking for your ex-wife, who was not among the plane's wreckage. there are a couple of lonely souls still sticking it out here, but most have left. they can offer you guidance, in exchange for help.
survival mode is just pure sandbox, there's no NPCs or story narrative. the goal is just to survive as long as you can.
features
- eight-ish huge maps to explore with tons of nooks and crannies (though you only visit 3 in story mode)
- minimalist music drifts in and out
- gorgeous hand-painted environment
- excellent foley work
- live off the land - food, water, medicinal plants
- some moderate crafting - not just animal hide clothing but also some basic tools and maintenance (gotta keep your clothing/tools in good repair)
- resource scarcity drives creative tactics (for example you can use one of your four rifle rounds to take a deer, OR you can try and scare that deer toward a hungry wolf and then use a road flare to scare the wolf away from the deer carcass long enough to harvest some meat and a hide)
- gotta be careful of injuries - a sprained ankle might prevent you from escaping a wolf, falling through some weak ice might get you a bad case of hypothermia, getting caught in a blizzard might mean some permanent frostbite damage, eating uncooked meat might earn you some intestinal parasites, etc etc
- predator behaviour - a bear can smell that raw deer meat you just harvested from ten clicks away, sometimes wolves hunt you as a pack
- extremely atmospheric
- 40ish achievements, some feats to reward long-time players (nothing gamebreaking though)
- good as hell
- also available for xbone and ps4 virtual stores, or if you wait a month or three they're going to put out physical copies
- permadeath in survival mode, saving allowed in story mode
- seriously just go get it and share your stories with me
trailer for PS4 release:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ-1O_w2KTg
trailer for story mode release back in august:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syoDWIt9yZY
