The TLDR: The game is a online coop FPS, ala L4D/Payday/Vermintide, but with a mix of mining in procedural, destructible levels ala Minecraft. In this case, the horde of enemies aren't zombies or skaven or security forces but alien bugs from a hostile planet.
It's still in Early Access but it's already pretty fully featured, more than some retail $60 games, in fact I would say it will release the 1.0 version in 3 or 4 months. Their updates has been really good in EA. For now it's on PC (Steam) and Xbox One Preview. I guess when it's finished it will also release on ps4?
Features:
-100% destructible terrain. You can see the destruction is much more granular and of finer detail than any Minecraft clone, in fact a hit of your pickaxe destroy a bigger volume than what it's technically just for gameplay reasons.
-Random procedural missions. Every 30 minutes a new set of missions are generated on the server. Each mission varies in: biome (8 to choose from), mission type (5 types), length, complexity and mutators (special variations, like extra gold or extra enemy fliers for the mission). Apart from the level itself being procedurally generated, of course.
-In addition, you choose the between five levels of difficulty, ranging from the super chill out, more about relaxing while mining, to the try-hard, for veteran players and much more intense. The difficulty levels are also properly scale up in a gradient, there is no big gaps between medium and hard, for example.
I also consider interesting you can see what level of length and complexity the map have, that's a nice detail, sometimes you want something epic, sometimes you want something more on the short side.
-I will add there is a proper difficulty scaling system depending on number of players, the game feels fair with one to four players.
-In fact, if you play alone, you get Bosco, a flying drone you can use and command, helping you mine or even reviving you, with its own mods to buy.
-Social area: you can drink, dance, talk, or play a minigame with your fellow dwarves. Sometimes they sell more expensive drinks in the bar that offer a buff in the next mission.
-Eight types of biomes, which is already twice of what I expected. Each biome, apart of having a unique look, it has unique gameplay effects like heat management in the artic one, earthquakes in the volcanic one, radiation in the radioactive wastes, poisonous ground, slippery ice, rifts that can be opened on the ground, dangerous flora, wind tunnels that push you around, etc. This perhaps is one of my favorite features, it really spices up gameplay and gives more identity to each biome.
-4 different dwarf classes, each with unique weapons and toolset. In the tools, there are ziplines, flare guns, grappling hooks, mechanical drill, platform launchers, and they provide the teamwork needed to go to hard to reach areas, for example the engineer can create impromptu platforms in the ceiling where hard to reach minerals are and the scout can use a hook to reach it and mine the objective.
-Mining game: not only you have to mine for several objectives, you also mine for gold (extra money), things like ammo and health are also obtained the same way, there is a red rock called red sugar that refill your health directly and another one called nitrite that you can spend in-mission to call for an ammo replenishment pod. In reality, except the last two difficulties maybe, it's a more chill game
-Enemy variety. There are more than 25 different enemies. While most are variations of the same idea (spider/alien bug thingie, or flying insect thingie, with only a few more unique ones), in total there is good variety: There are ones that jump at you, others that explode when they die (except if you headshot them), others have armor parts that can be removed, others have weak points in specific locations, others fly around, other throw spiderwebs that impede your vision and slow you. One flier can grab you and throw you around after a undesired trip :(. There are immobile broods that spawn enemies, cave leechs that grab you like the famous Half Life barnacle, and others throw projectiles that can be shot down.
-Fully featured server browser, with quick join, hosting public or private games, password option, or solo mode.
-Very good performance. It's nice to play a game at 150 fps :P.
There is a full progression system, too:
-You have a series of milestones to complete, they give you perks, and there are different tiers of perks.
-As you gain xp, you both increase your account rank (which is a requisite to unlock some things) and your class level individually.
-There is an assignment system that consist of a series of missions, once completed, you receive an extra reward and unlock some part of the game (like the highest difficulty or the trade market, or alternative weapons). Basically it serves to gate stuff and offer a more streamlined experience to new players, and some intermediate objectives to have.
-There is weekly assignments too like in other similar games.
-Weapons and items have mods to unlock and buy. This is in fact the real way to gain a bit more of power, in comparison with the starting players. As you unlock them, you gain mastery on the weapons, unlocking new skins, in the case of armor, you unlock small hp bonuses.
-Unlocking stuff needs crafting materials, apart from money. You get crafting materials from completing missions, but also inside the missions themselves, you can find a rare resource and mine it.
-Apart from perks, weapons and mods, there is the cosmetic character customization. There are hats, hair (and beard!) styles and colors, armors, etc.
-Finally, there is a character promotion (you reset that class to level 1, like prestige in CoD) and you get a extra perk slot for that class, in exchange.
This is the latest trailer, which features new enemies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyAWOamsv7o
Some of the latest trailers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOFrxQlYlek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDurNPFhaiE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w799d2-oYo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeiVBYjr0ts
It's still in Early Access but it's already pretty fully featured, more than some retail $60 games, in fact I would say it will release the 1.0 version in 3 or 4 months. Their updates has been really good in EA. For now it's on PC (Steam) and Xbox One Preview. I guess when it's finished it will also release on ps4?
Features:
-100% destructible terrain. You can see the destruction is much more granular and of finer detail than any Minecraft clone, in fact a hit of your pickaxe destroy a bigger volume than what it's technically just for gameplay reasons.
-Random procedural missions. Every 30 minutes a new set of missions are generated on the server. Each mission varies in: biome (8 to choose from), mission type (5 types), length, complexity and mutators (special variations, like extra gold or extra enemy fliers for the mission). Apart from the level itself being procedurally generated, of course.
-In addition, you choose the between five levels of difficulty, ranging from the super chill out, more about relaxing while mining, to the try-hard, for veteran players and much more intense. The difficulty levels are also properly scale up in a gradient, there is no big gaps between medium and hard, for example.
I also consider interesting you can see what level of length and complexity the map have, that's a nice detail, sometimes you want something epic, sometimes you want something more on the short side.
-I will add there is a proper difficulty scaling system depending on number of players, the game feels fair with one to four players.
-In fact, if you play alone, you get Bosco, a flying drone you can use and command, helping you mine or even reviving you, with its own mods to buy.
-Social area: you can drink, dance, talk, or play a minigame with your fellow dwarves. Sometimes they sell more expensive drinks in the bar that offer a buff in the next mission.
-Eight types of biomes, which is already twice of what I expected. Each biome, apart of having a unique look, it has unique gameplay effects like heat management in the artic one, earthquakes in the volcanic one, radiation in the radioactive wastes, poisonous ground, slippery ice, rifts that can be opened on the ground, dangerous flora, wind tunnels that push you around, etc. This perhaps is one of my favorite features, it really spices up gameplay and gives more identity to each biome.
-4 different dwarf classes, each with unique weapons and toolset. In the tools, there are ziplines, flare guns, grappling hooks, mechanical drill, platform launchers, and they provide the teamwork needed to go to hard to reach areas, for example the engineer can create impromptu platforms in the ceiling where hard to reach minerals are and the scout can use a hook to reach it and mine the objective.
-Mining game: not only you have to mine for several objectives, you also mine for gold (extra money), things like ammo and health are also obtained the same way, there is a red rock called red sugar that refill your health directly and another one called nitrite that you can spend in-mission to call for an ammo replenishment pod. In reality, except the last two difficulties maybe, it's a more chill game
-Enemy variety. There are more than 25 different enemies. While most are variations of the same idea (spider/alien bug thingie, or flying insect thingie, with only a few more unique ones), in total there is good variety: There are ones that jump at you, others that explode when they die (except if you headshot them), others have armor parts that can be removed, others have weak points in specific locations, others fly around, other throw spiderwebs that impede your vision and slow you. One flier can grab you and throw you around after a undesired trip :(. There are immobile broods that spawn enemies, cave leechs that grab you like the famous Half Life barnacle, and others throw projectiles that can be shot down.
-Fully featured server browser, with quick join, hosting public or private games, password option, or solo mode.
-Very good performance. It's nice to play a game at 150 fps :P.
There is a full progression system, too:
-You have a series of milestones to complete, they give you perks, and there are different tiers of perks.
-As you gain xp, you both increase your account rank (which is a requisite to unlock some things) and your class level individually.
-There is an assignment system that consist of a series of missions, once completed, you receive an extra reward and unlock some part of the game (like the highest difficulty or the trade market, or alternative weapons). Basically it serves to gate stuff and offer a more streamlined experience to new players, and some intermediate objectives to have.
-There is weekly assignments too like in other similar games.
-Weapons and items have mods to unlock and buy. This is in fact the real way to gain a bit more of power, in comparison with the starting players. As you unlock them, you gain mastery on the weapons, unlocking new skins, in the case of armor, you unlock small hp bonuses.
-Unlocking stuff needs crafting materials, apart from money. You get crafting materials from completing missions, but also inside the missions themselves, you can find a rare resource and mine it.
-Apart from perks, weapons and mods, there is the cosmetic character customization. There are hats, hair (and beard!) styles and colors, armors, etc.
-Finally, there is a character promotion (you reset that class to level 1, like prestige in CoD) and you get a extra perk slot for that class, in exchange.
This is the latest trailer, which features new enemies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyAWOamsv7o
Some of the latest trailers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOFrxQlYlek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDurNPFhaiE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w799d2-oYo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeiVBYjr0ts
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