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Felt like a shitty survival game relying on visuals and Bioshock "inspiration". I could be wrong, just check any let's play video on YouTube if you wanna see whether they improved the game or didn't.
First impressions are very favorable. Lots of QOL features make me glad.
* HUD elements can be turned off one by one or set to "activity fade" (e.g. if you take damage, your health bar appears for a few moments but then disappears). I go around with no HUD whatsoever and it feels great.
* Inventory has a limit, but crafting materials can be dumped into a magical compressor.
* Hunger, thirst, lack of sleep are not lethal but carry penalties to movement speed and melee damage.
* The one combat I've had so far felt very smooth and responsive.
* Looked at with an open mind, the setting is beautiful and horrifying. The darkness is real. First location I found was filled with artifacts of insanity culminating in the discovery of a lovers' suicide pact.
* Open world feels very free, particularly with compass/q marker turned off.
* Plenty of set pieces in the environment that don't have to do with "quests", world feels rich.
I hate the title name. I hate the title art. I hate the Bioshock inspirations. I hate the cartoony art style. I hate the procedural elements. I hate that it seems to draw inspiration from, or is a modern survival game.
Nonetheless it's a game I'm mostly unsure about, though have only watched one short vid. We need more Codex consensus in here.
It is a popamole survival shit where crowbar will break after you hit the enemy three times and you have to chew down food and drinks every 5 minutes. In other words,it is shit.
* Checkpoint saves only. No "vita chambers". Makes everything terrifying. Of course this is the beginning of the game and I don't know how anything works, once I get farther I expect more confidence.
* First legit "quest" is heavy handed, you have to go steal something for a guy to get a key to leave the first zone. Disappointing.
* Nice trespassing/curfew system. You're alerted when you're somewhere you're not supposed to be, or at a time you're not supposed to be there.
* "Social stealth". The Act I character (Arthur) can sit on a bench and read a newspaper to become inconspicuous.
* Clothes matter. A nice suit on skid row makes you a target; rags in a nice neighborhood also make you a target.
* Every single person in the game has a name. This includes every dead body you find.
* Stealth feels good. Sneaking, walking, and sprinting can be bound as toggles or holds.
* Mantling and climbing feels good.
* Harsh game world continues. Beating up insane women? Required for progress.
* Breaking weapons is indeed a thing, my stick snapped after knocking out two people with it ... while a third was still trying to kill me. Nice emergent "oh fuck" moment.
* To repeat about survival stuff: you don't have to eat or drink ever, but it will make the game harder.
* Sandbox mode apparently still in development. There's a button for New Game/Sandbox, currently greyed out.
* After a few more combats, fighting is officially fun. Strong melee engine with great feedback. Forehands, backhands, blocking, shoving. Stamina management a constant concern.
In the early access (I call it demo) food/thirst/sleep deprivation actually killed you.
I remember dying of thirst, not being able to find water that didn't have joy in it or just water in general, also dying because I contracted the plague and not having the antidote.
Anyway, if you actually managed to get to the more "civilised" islands you had to constantly talk/interact/salute people on the street else they became suspicious and afterwards hostile if they thought you forgot to take your joy. Not in the final version though. There is even a perk that removes the negative effects of starvation/dehydration/sleep deprivation. Like what's the point in having them anymore? They don't kill you now so... There's also a perk that allows you to travel unhindered during curfew hours and not only that but another one which makes it so "strange" behavior like jumping, sprinting, crouching, mantling do not attract attention anymore even though in the demo they did and it added to the whole "blending in" philosophy they had. Very similar to mafia 1 where you had to actually stop at red lights, not brandish a weapon, don't go over the speed limit etc.
Tl;Dr:
l like the game but they compromised their original vision by removing some elements.. In my opinion this is yet another game that has an identity crisis. Also, fuck Sally.
* The first heavy handed "quest giver" left after giving me my mission; I had to go find him somewhere else. Nice that people don't just stand there like lampposts.
* Somewhat railroady feeling at the beginning. Every combat I've had so far has been scripted. (Maybe I'm just so awesome at stealth that I'm avoiding all optional fights.) I want more time to explore, I want vague objectives.
* It sucks that disguise is a thing but I can't steal anyone's clothes.
Wow, having got to the first city, this game is suddenly extremely harsh and hardcore.
* Difficulty spikes ridiculously upon reaching Maidenholm. A single mistake will have the entire population of the city instantly trying to kill you. And the streets are packed with people. The immediate lesson: never do anything.
* You must constantly recharge drug levels at distantly scattered stations. Failure to do so will, yep, have the entire population trying to kill you. Overdosing will also have the entire population trying to kill you.
* The upside: if you reach your home base, all heat immediately disappears. Of course, if you try to move more than a block away from your home base, ... you guessed it.
* Once you are in the "dying" state, if you don't have a healing potion there is nothing you can do. You have to stand there for about 3 minutes and slowly die, even with 20 cops beating you with sticks. It's excruciating.
* And oh yeah ... before entering the city, all your weapons are taken away and there's no obvious place to get more, not even a tree branch.
You upset someone if you trespass or steal something and they become aggressive, start chasing you and if you run past other people they all aggro. So if you piss someone off run outside the city and hide or fight there.
Also you don't need joy except when being scanned or have to pass through detectors. You can disable them also with a spike while sneaking during night or by wearing the boiler suit and not worry about raising suspicion. When you get sunshine, you can forget about joy. Hope I didn't spoil anything too major.
PS: your stuff is in the pneumatic stash, if we're talking about when you enter "civilisation" from the garden district.
It sounds like they made the game to hard for normies and journos so they had to compensate by throwing in perks that circumvent the gameplay. Shameful display.
Anyway I dislike the art style, and I am sick and tired of "survival" games so unlikely I will ever play this, but I am very happy to see someone trying something thats a bit different in concept.
Well, the needs no longer kill you so they only become annoying with the debuffs they give. This game is not what was in early access. From what i heard some people whined that it was too hard and they nerfed the needs in the final version. In short, like I said above, they compromised their original vision for this game.
Regardless the premise and the story are pretty interesting. I haven't finished it yet, only got to act 2 now (which is pretty brutal at first) and I took a break but I want to finish it though but not on permadeath (which I started initially on but died in the beggining of act 2 because spoilers, just wait till you get there).
From what i heard some people whined that it was too hard and they nerfed the needs in the final version. In short, like I said above, they compromised their original vision for this game.
Eh. Maybe the original vision was "die and reload all the time from starvation", but somehow I doubt it. The debuffs are significant enough that you still have a strong incentive not to let it happen. Personally I am fine with the decision that you don't die after 5 minutes if you forget to drink water. If that makes me casual, so be it.
From what i heard some people whined that it was too hard and they nerfed the needs in the final version. In short, like I said above, they compromised their original vision for this game.
Eh. Maybe the original vision was "die and reload all the time from starvation", but somehow I doubt it. The debuffs are significant enough that you still have a strong incentive not to let it happen. Personally I am fine with the decision that you don't die after 5 minutes if you forget to drink water. If that makes me casual, so be it.
They could have adjusted them to not be so drastic but not remove the threat of dying altogether. I mean you cannot die from them and you have a perk that removes the negative effects so.....why keep them then at all?
Also they changed the way they worked: now you only need to eat one piece/unit of whatever food you have and it fills 100%/drink 1 canteen of water and it hydrates 100%/sleep 1 hour and you are fully rested compared to EA where you had to consume larger quantities of food and water and sleep longer to get to 100 %. With this in mind and the pneumatic stash that allows you access to it from any shelter and can hold infinite amount of items (food, water etc.) their decision is weird to say the least. FYI I finished act 1 with 188 Rowan berries, 200 blue currants, 55 canteens of pure water etc. I collected more than I consumed so I didn't die every 5 minutes. Anyway the idea is if something doesn't work you try to change/adjust/tune it, removal should be the last option.
They could have adjusted them to not be so drastic but not remove the threat of dying altogether. I mean you cannot die from them and you have a perk that removes the negative effects so.....why keep them then at all?
Also they changed the way they worked: now you only need to eat one piece/unit of whatever food you have and it fills 100%/drink 1 canteen of water and it hydrates 100%/sleep 1 hour and you are fully rested compared to EA where you had to consume larger quantities of food and water and sleep longer to get to 100 %.
Well. They did tune it (badly). The only thing they removed was death, and they replaced it with debuffs, which in my opinion is more interesting anyway. Trying to get home with impaired abilities is richer gameplay than hitting LOAD GAME.
Yes, the game does have a lot of bugs, not gamebreaking, but still. I did 90% of side quests without encountering issues with them, as in they are completable, the main quest does have a problem in act 2 if you sequence break and yes the NPCs clipping through walls, floating, being stuck in geometry, various animation loops, all this happens way too often when you're traversing the world.
Is this game worth it at all for an "immersive sim" addict? Kept ignoring it because of proceduraly generated levels and survival elements, but it's finally down to just over $20.
Is this game worth it at all for an "immersive sim" addict? Kept ignoring it because of proceduraly generated levels and survival elements, but it's finally down to just over $20.
My overall impression was "not bad" from playing several hours. The early stealth sequences were fun, worldbuilding is strong and I personally liked the art style and presentation. Once I got to the city I hit a wall, from not really understanding how the social stealth worked I guess. Just getting around at that point seemed impossible so I lost interest. Some people explained how it actually works and I kind of meant to get back to it but never did.
Also read my posts upthread. Reading them back now, there is lots of good info there
With the DLCs it's a good but depressing story. The gameplay is good especially in the final DLC which came out a month ago or so. It's not really an immersive sim unfortunately.
In my opinion the early access that they did before launch was good, hard, it only needed the story bits and some polishing. In the final version you have a survival mode but you don't die from not eating, drinking, sleeping, instead suffer some debuffs. In early access I remember dying because I contracted the plague early, I had no way to craft the antidote and I died. I also died twice due to thirst and you had to prepare to go on another island. Prepare supplies and stuff. In the final version you just have access to a safe that connects all your safehouses and has unlimited storage.
This was honestly my only complaint. But the story is depressing and characters are not so e you can sympathize with, which was a surprise to me because not that many games manage to do this.
I like how the DLCs all heavily advertise "hand-crafted content" and "no time to eat, drink or sleep!" Really shows you what they perceived as the problem. Anyway I got it all, let's see what happens.
I played this and I liked it a lot. However, most of what I would want to say about this game has been said by others already in this thread, so I'll try to not repeat stuff.
The game has some nice inspirations. The city that the game takes place in, Wellington Wells, takes on a character of itself, like Rapture in Bioshock. It's a dystopian utopia, slowly crumbling into anarchy, unlike Rapture which is already an anarchy. The dependence on Joy, which ultimately eating society from within, mirrors how Eve and Adam destroyed Rapture.
The melee combat system reminds me of the nuFallouts. The Garden District is quite postapocalyptic. Might be coincidental though.
Another possible inspiration is Sir, You Are Being Hunted. Both games are procedurally generated and takes place on a group of islands. Also, in Sir you can hide in tall grass whereas in WHF you hide in tall flowers.
Now where am I going with this? I played We Happy Few after finishing The Outer Worlds and I can't help but feeling that WHF was a big inspiration for it. The gameplay similarities might just be coincidences, but there are other similarities as well:
*Dystopian Utopia solowly crumbling because people are dumb, inept, corrupt or any combination of the three. Only in WHF it's more believable, because it's been going on for about 15 years instead of 60 years.
*The population is slowly starving to death.
*They made a drug that cause people to be unnaturally happy and smile creepily, all the while doing what they're being told unquestionnably (Murder on Eridanos).
*WHF tries to balance humourous content with serious content, just like The Outer Worlds, but does a far better job of it.
Other than that, I got all the DLCs. I enjoyed them for the new story content, but I'd say they're quite short.
Survival mode with permadeath was great, I'll probably replay that a few more times in the future.
Overall I found it to be a great game, but get it on a sale.