Game News The Long Journey Home Released

[Infinitron]

Tags: Daedalic Entertainment; The Long Journey Home

Today is the release date for The Long Journey Home, Daedalic Entertainment's Star Control 2-inspired space exploration RPG. For the past week the game has been making the rounds on the Twitch circuit, revealing it to be essentially an adaptation of the Star Control 2 formula to a roguelike framework. It's apparently quite challenging, something which has earned it several harshly negative reviews from the mainstream press. Meanwhile, our own reviewer, the esteemed oasis789, is having a blast. Could we have the next Blackguards on our hands here? Here's the game's launch trailer and description:

There are a million worlds in the galaxy. Only one of them is Home.

It was supposed to be a short test run - a quick flight to Alpha Centauri and back. But when mankind’s first experimental jump drive goes wrong, a misfit crew finds itself trapped on the wrong side of the universe - alone, injured, falling apart. The only way back… is through.

Explore an endlessly shifting universe. Form alliances with strange aliens, from the noble Wolphax Knights to cruel-minded Ilitza slaver empire. Harness your crew’s skills in everything from research to archeology to diplomacy. Learn the laws of an often hostile universe, and make tough decisions that may change it forever. Do whatever it takes to get back to Earth.

The Long Journey Home combines the endless freedom of space with a new open questing system that always leaves you in command. Deliver the stranded Glukkt to his homeworld as he asks, or to your new slaver friends? Attempt to make allies with everyone, or pin your hopes on the tougher races, and hope they never turn on you? Jump by jump, make hard decisions and live with the consequences, in a universe that is never the same twice.

One mission. Endless adventures.

Where will your Journey take you?

Endless Space
Explore a living, procedurally generated universe inspired by both classic and modern Science Fiction. Meet different aliens. Find different stories. Take different risks. Learn the secrets of the universe and with them, new possibilities.

Hidden stories
Raid alien tombs full of traps and treasure. Compete in the galaxy’s greatest combat tournament. Find and research strange artifacts, and use your crew’s skills to find out whether that old skull is just a piece of bone, or the Holy Grail of an aggressive new species.

A crew worth leading
Choose four out of ten experts, all with personality as well as specialties. Far from just stats, you’ll come to know them as they share their feelings, their fears, their excitement and their concerns on the trip and your decisions. Learn how best to use their skills to help the others… and who might be willing to sacrifice themselves to get the others back Home.
​

The Long Journey Home is available now on Steam and GOG for the price of $40, with a 10% launch discount until next week. Hopefully you can expect our review in the not-too-distant future.

 

[MRY]

Some reviews are coming in:

Polygon: "The Long Journey Home contains some colorful ideas, but it’s dragged down by an overwhelming dependence on repetitive, discouraging tests of mechanical patience and skill. ... I can tell that The Long Journey is a complicated game, but the narrative is the least complex thing about it." (5.5/10)

Gamewatcher: "Welcome to The Long Journey Home, a game that tries very hard but only succeeded in making me think developer Daedalic Studio West deliberately made the game so obtuse, convoluted, painful and un-fun as part of some wild, baffling experiment." (2/5)

CG Magazine: "It’s easy to dismiss The Long Journey Home as a subpar pretender, standing on the backs of a few indie games that came before it, as I almost did, but it ends up being more than that." (8/10)

Interested to see when more big sites come in. Hope it can be improved as patched. When can we get the Codex view?

 

[Infinitron]

Some reviews are coming in:

Polygon: "The Long Journey Home contains some colorful ideas, but it’s dragged down by an overwhelming dependence on repetitive, discouraging tests of mechanical patience and skill. ... I can tell that The Long Journey is a complicated game, but the narrative is the least complex thing about it." (5.5/10)

Gamewatcher: "Welcome to The Long Journey Home, a game that tries very hard but only succeeded in making me think developer Daedalic Studio West deliberately made the game so obtuse, convoluted, painful and un-fun as part of some wild, baffling experiment." (2/5)

CG Magazine: "It’s easy to dismiss The Long Journey Home as a subpar pretender, standing on the backs of a few indie games that came before it, as I almost did, but it ends up being more than that." (8/10)

Interested to see when more big sites come in. Hope it can be improved as patched.

Some discussion of those reviews in the linked GRPG thread.

 

[MRY]

Some more reviews:

Nerdable: "It’s a sense of discovery which drives The Long Journey Home along. The desire to meet new races, find new artefacts and get closer to Earth never eases up and always makes the time spent with the game well worthwhile. Repetitive missions and dull crew members can hinder the experience at times, but the promise of another planet to explore and the final goal of reaching Earth is always there to keep you invested." (7.3)

RPS: "There’s not quite enough here to win me over completely, but there’s more than enough to make the numerous trips I’ve made worthwhile, and part of the charm is in never knowing if there’s anything left to discover. The stars are strange and home to many mysteries and it’s tempting to stick around until I’ve seen them all. But keep in mind that there’s lots of work to do along the way." (no score)

The Gaming Enthusiast: "Instead, what The Long Journey Home delivers is a low-fi No Man’s Sky that somehow doubles down on the tedium and protracted boredom of interstellar spaceflight, all while placing intentional and onerous frustrations in your way. There are glimmers of potential here, of the game that could have been, but ultimately it fails to deliver anything more than the most basic execution of its core ideas. In the end, it demonstrates the worst aspects of procedural generation, feeling empty and without personality. It’s as though all of Voyager was told over the course of a single episode from the perspective of an emotionless robot." (no score)

 

[cpmartins]

Tags: Daedalic Entertainment; The Long Journey Home
living, procedurally generated

Contradicting statements in the description, very promising.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Tags: Daedalic Entertainment; The Long Journey Home
living, procedurally generated

Contradicting statements in the description, very promising.

 

[thesheeep]

Seems to be a somewhat divisive game

 

[MRY]

Seems to be a somewhat divisive game

I think it's found a really strong base of support among a cadre of fans (more than 2/3 of of the reviews on Steam are positive). You can tell how passionate people are by the downvotes on the negative reviews and the upvotes on the positive ones -- a game that's truly divisive sees the negative views pushed way up and the positive ones pushed down (as happened with TTON), but here the fanbase is doing a good job of the opposite, which is promising for the long tail. An evangelical player base can make a big difference long term.

Also, PC Gamer's review is up. Contrary to Infinitron's worries about their recusing because PC Gamer writer was involved, they've covered it lavishly. Although the 68% score is on the lower side, the text is glowing: "A savage, sometimes frustrating space exploration game that succeeds because of beautiful design and a compelling universe." This review will help get the game over the critical 66% threshold on Metacritic.

 

[abnaxus]

I keep confusing this with A Long Road Home.

 

[Leechmonger]

So are we homo home yet?

 

[MRY]

6.4 from IGN, which calls it a "rouge-like," which made me chuckle.

 

[Van-d-all]

Every review so far seems to find the game repetitive and boring.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

The price seems a bit steep for a relatively small and low budget game. I would probably have risked $20 on this, but not $40.

 

[MRY]

A lot of indies have set pretty high base prices to maximize revenue from core fans and to allow for more dramatic percentage discounts during sales -- I know it has worked well for WEG, which did a 50% price increase for all their post-Primordia games. Fewer sales, but higher revenue, apparently.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Fewer sales, but higher revenue, apparently.

This seems a bit self-defeating if you're trying to build a fanbase for future games.

 

[MRY]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As Dave just pointed out the other day on Twitter, he's comfortably supported his family for a decade off of selling adventure games, so I assume he knows what he's doing! For me it's just a hobby. I'd much rather sell 10 times the copies at 50% the revenue than 1/10 the copies at twice the revenue, but that's because the revenue isn't important to me.

 

[Archibald]

This seems a bit self-defeating if you're trying to build a fanbase for future games.

Probably bundles and 80% sales are for that.

 

[J_C]

I keep confusing this with A Long Road Home.

This is the exact reason I prepaired a lawsuit for infringing my copyright. I gonna get fucking millions out of this.

Spoiler

 

[Au Ellai]

All the right outlets are giving mediocre to bad reviews on this and it's actually making me think this is worth picking up. At the moment though the price is kinda keeping me away (and the fact I'm balls deep in [MMO of choice] at the moment), but will probably pick it up when [MMO of choice] gets boring and repetitive as always in a few months.

 

[Jaesun]

It is truly sad that Daedalic was bought by that Publisher, and all the new games continue to get worse and worse......