Surviving the new weird
Developer Starry Studio
Publisher NetEase
Format Android, iOS, PC
Origin China
Release Q3
For a world sent into anarchy by extraterrestrial particles capable of F mutating people into cosmic monsters, the highways of this post-apocalypse aren’t half busy with tourists. Stepping into its introductory area, we see temporary camps and half-constructed player houses in every direction we look – in fact, we struggle to find a suitable patch of empty wilderness to mark out a territory of our own. A few hills over, and after a close encounter with a prehistoricsized crocodile, we stumble into an empty plot of land with a bounty of banana trees and exposed copper deposits. We call it home, but aren’t surprised when we return a couple of hours later to find a handful of neighbours have moved in. Say what you will about canned beans and antibiotics, property value will be as high as ever when the end times come.
Then again, even developer Starry Studio didn’t anticipate the interest its multiplayer survival game would draw. Shortly after launching, the open beta was switched to an invitation-only system to stall the flood of incoming players, while the maximum number of testers was more than doubled to 50,000. Even then, would-be survivalists were still being turned away on the game’s bulging Discord server. Not bad for a new studio with no credits to its name. And while the deep pockets of Chinese parent mega-publisher NetEase might have something to do with that, we don’t doubt that the sheer scope of Once Human has given it a large net with which to reel in curious players.
To call this a survival game is an understatement. Yes, there are the systems you’d expect of that genre: thirst and hunger gauges need to be topped up by eating and drinking, and increasingly gourmet food can be scavenged and cooked as you unlock your way up a skill tree. On the crafting side, loose materials can be picked up and turned into more advanced components at workbenches to create weapons and tools, and rarer ores can be mined to produce more effective versions. Base-building is introduced early, too, and lets you put down walls, floors and ceilings to quickly construct neatly square buildings.
All of this is straightforward and doesn’t differ vastly from anything we’ve seen before. But it does move quickly. We’re surprised at how soon after stepping into the world we’ve crafted a handgun and put together a rough shack. There’s a sense that these typical earlygame rituals aren’t all that important, as you’re hurried through them to get to the survival horror, base defence and narrative scaffolding on which everything hangs.
