Review of Icarus – a survival game with a twist

Icarus by Rocketwerkz (led by Dean Hall – creator of DayZ) is a survival game – your character (hence a group of up to eight players) must survive in a dangerous world full of enemy fauna and flora. This genre is not the most playable for me, and apart from the Ark, in which I played a few hundred hours, then in any similar game I did not last more than a short start, so this is the Ark, with which I constantly compared the game characteristics during the game .

• Platform: PC
• Publication date: 04/12/2021
• Producer: Rocket Werkz (New Zealand)
• Genre: Survival
• Czech location: Not
• Multiplayer: Yes (up to eight players)
• Data to download: 70 GB
• Game time: 100+
• Price: 629 CZK (couples)

Weyland-Yutani – Making Better Worlds

The game takes place on the planet Icarus, four light years from Earth. The planet was originally the target of terraformation and subsequent settlement, but this was prevented by extraterrestrial minerals (the so-called exotics) and something went wrong. So, up to eight players are sent to the planet to gradually figure out what went wrong and ideally make some money selling the material they’ve mined.

So we come to the first difference from games like ARK. You are not in one long game sequence. Icarus consists of missions, resp. so-called contracts. After collecting the contract in the Pod in orbit, you go to the planet, where you always start over. Buildings and equipment from the previous contract are irretrievably lost due to destructive weather and you will have to build everything from the very beginning. All you have left is the knowledge of crafting “recipes” and the equipment you buy with rewards from contracts. However, you have a time limit for this contract. This limit is calculated in real time. For example, if the limit is 5 days and you are going on vacation, you will have an unpleasant situation. Your character is lost and you are indeed going to the next contract. Fortunately, the limit is set very conveniently, so you can miss a few days, the contract can be played in a few hours. After the contract is completed, you need to get back into the capsule and return to orbit, where you will collect the reward. For these rewards, you will then unlock and craft equipment that is given to you before the start of the contract, so that you do not have to start empty-handed. That is, until you miss the expiration date of the contract. Every action in the game gives you XP. For leveling up, you get a skill point (you can unlock a passive skill like 3%/5%/10% bow damage bonus or better ore, wood, and shape gathering) and a few points to unlock new recipes. . However, stats like HP/Stamina don’t change with your level.

Icarus consists of missions, or so-called contracts.

So what do you find on the surface? After about 40 hours of play, my playmate and I encountered fauna and flora known on our planet. Deer, boars, wolves, bears and the like. For example, trees, wild berries, flowers and corn. The only thing so far on another planet, we have been the glowworms you find in every mineral cave. The player must survive enemy animal attacks, not die from hunger, thirst or lack of O2 (this can be obtained by mining special ore, which seems like a rather strange choice) and perfectly match the purpose of the contract (from killing a specific animal to collect special samples) and healthy to return to base into orbit.

It is important to enjoy survival

What about the fun of fighting for survival and trying to make money? Well, not so famous. The longer we played the game, the more it caught our eye. The fauna and flora aren’t the most diverse, the items you can craft based on recipes don’t have that much of an impact on the game. It is very tiring to start each new contract from scratch. Gather wood, bones, stones, iron, etc. again. But the biggest problem, I think, is the fights. The wolf goes with an arrow to the head, a maximum of two. The same applies to most wild animals. However, the bear will last longer and finish you off in a few shots. This can be especially problematic. However, animals like polar bears or elephants are really annoying. They have extremely abnormal stamina, incredible strength (it doesn’t matter what armor you are wearing, the polar bear will knock you down in two hits and there’s nothing to be done about it.). The fact that sometimes this beast will save you a few meters behind your back and effectively cut off the path back will not add to your entertainment.

Add to this extreme weather conditions that, in addition to restricting movement, also cause periodic injuries, unreasonably high demands on resources such as water, food or various medicines, a terrible death penalty (you can be taken by a partner, but since what you killed it is still close, it’s not the safest task) in the case of respawn and similar game mechanics, you can probably get an idea of ​​how I felt the game.

The longer we played the game, the more it caught our eye.

The user interface has big flaws, for example when you put multiple types of metal ore into the furnace, you can’t choose which ore you want to smelt, the game decides for you. The game does not support its own dedicated servers and does not allow you to change the game settings. Combined with the gameplay features described above, this makes Icarus almost unsuitable for solo play.

planet as in the picture

Technically Icarus looks better. The graphics are very good, the environment looks beautifully alive, the sounds are really great, the weather has really beautiful effects. Such a thunderstorm is really a treat for the eyes and ears. The lightning and the subsequent burning forest really look beautiful.

All this works very well. Unreal Engine 4 really comes out on top here, and even at max detail at 1440p I had fps between 60 and 90. The game does have some minor bugs and crashes, but we haven’t encountered any major bugs in nearly forty hours of play. . . The authors are very active and update the game very often. The game certainly promises higher quality, as well as more varied environments than just forest/snowy valley and desert, and more interesting recipes/technologies to explore. However, all this is in the future, so it is not yet clear when and in what form it will get into the live version of the game.