this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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Ultimately it’s a logistics simulator, like Euro/ American truck simulator or Snowrunner, but instead of hauling things around in trucks, you do it on foot, via motorcycle, and even sometimes trucks. In the beginning you grab a couple packages and hoof it in foot from A to B. The further you get, the more you can transport at once, and the more complicated the routes get, more difficult the terrain gets, and the more you have to strategize your overall route. A big portion of the game is exploring alternate routes and laying down tools to assist yourself in future deliveries or even other players like ladders, bridges, ropes, rain shelters, ziplines, canons, and more. It’s post apocalyptic, and so in addition to harsh weather and unforgiving terrain, you also frequently have to haul your goods through hostile enemy zones who will attack you and steal your cargo, or areas where you must sneak by the games primary antagonists, the ghosts/monsters known as BTs. A secondary focus of the game is the Dark Souls-esque “multiplayer” where the things you put down in the world can be used by other players or vice versa. You can make an entire side game out of DS by simply finding other players lost cargo in the world and recovering it/ delivering it for them, leaving helpful and informative messages and motivations, or even using stealth combat to sneak into enemy encampments and liberating other players stolen cargo for them.
If I had to distill it down into a single distinct vibe, think about post apocalyptic/ zombie type movies, I am Legend for example, where a lonely survivor/ wanderer has become accustomed to their new world and despite the hostile conditions is able to move around freely via the use of various tools and structures they’ve built up around the area to cleverly outwit the elements and whatever monster ended the world. Thats who you play in the game. You’re Will Smith in I am Legend but instead of being a lonely drunk locked away in a compound, you’re the neighborhood mail man.
How does the multiplayer aspect work? If I play the game now, will I find the entire world already filled of bridges, ladders and roads?
It’s still very active seemingly, after making this comment I started a new play through lol.
Basically each sub region starts off as “disconnected from the network”, so your first expedition to a new area you’ll have no help from other players, only what you bring with you. Once you connect the region to the network, that’s when other players items can start appearing in your world and vice versa. Now it’s instanced so you won’t see everything every single player has placed, just a subset. Now there’s also a concept of “bandwidth”. When you first connect an area to the network, the bandwidth is low so only smaller, lower level things will show up in your game. You’ll start to see some conveniently placed ladders and ropes mostly. So you go from being 100% on your own, to having a little help here and there. Which each new completed delivery though, you increase the bandwidth available, and you’ll see more / bigger objects enter your game world. Bridges can that span a river, timefall unbrellas that let you wait out a storm with some music, watchtowers that can give you a Birds Eye view, things of that nature. When you get the bandwidth really high, you’ll start to see bigger structures like sections of floating highways allowing truck travel, and even underground bunkers that function just like private rooms do in the big locations. So the more time you spend in one area completing bigger deliveries that need to be delivered faster, the game very gradually adds more player support to the game. So the game retains its challenge when you’re first entering an unexplored area, but makes it less tedious to deliver follow up deliveries as time goes on. It’s really brilliant in my opinion. Because while it’s fun to man vs wild your way to new places, it wouldn’t be as fun to keep treading the same route the same way over and over. The way they’ve implemented this system keeps things relatively fresh.
Another factor is that the timefall rain will degrade both your and other players structures over time. So without maintenance, things placed down will eventually be destroyed. You can haul resources to both your own structures as well as other players to keep them repaired. Bigger structures require more resources and collaboration to maintain. You can also favorite certain players and then their stuff specifically might show up in your game more so than random players, so you can almost have an asynchronous “friendship” with someone you never see.