We tried out the new sci-fi simulation from the authors of Stranded: Alien Dawn, Tropico

Regardless of technological and tasteful advances, simulation remains the cornerstone of the video game industry and has taken advantage of the latest hybridization trends, always knowing how to reinvent with new features. Some teams that now specialize almost entirely in games of this type are well aware of this, especially in the PC space, which develops and spreads with impressive regularity: Heamimont Games, for example, has carved out a practically stainless niche in this space, which includes the giveaway here. Stranded: Foreign Dawnwe have tested In pre-release available on Steam.

Announced by Frontier with a trailer at Gamescom 2022 as one of the titles as part of the British label’s new release initiative, the game in question clearly derives from Haemimont’s experience on the excellent Surviving Mars, but with a few additions. implemented through this hybridization process, which works particularly well with various simulations.

Next, we are faced with a mix of strategy, management and survival set in an alien sandbox that enriches everything with a truly special touch, although the choice of characterization does not focus very clearly on the sci-fi matrix of the whole. There History It puts us in control of a group of astronauts who find themselves crashing into the surface of an unknown alien planet, needing to survive with little at hand and what the new world has to offer.

A new wild world

It begins with four survivors on an apparently virgin planet, this strangely reminiscent of the Sierra Nevada or, in any case, landscapes very similar to terrestrial gaze, but this is certainly useful for immediately understanding where it is possible to attract the right resources for survival. . As soon as we emerge from the wreckage of the shuttle, we immediately find ourselves gathering wood and building sheds and fences, falling right into the most classical canon. survival sandbox. Perhaps too precisely: the alien environment does not “emerge” from the game action to the slightly more advanced parts, with the need to go through strictly classic stages first for such games. There is almost no narrative support in the part being tested, and it’s just a matter of keeping the heroes alive and gradually guiding them as they explore the new world. simulation hard and pure.

One feature of Stranded: Alien Dawn is the fact of bidding. characters Possibility to choose your starting kit of four elements from a good assortment of different figures, endowed with their own personalities and specific characteristics. This is a seemingly marginal element, but then becomes of great importance in the development of the game, since everyone’s basic statistics, in addition to their personal aspirations and learning tendencies in certain areas, are fundamental to assigning everyone their own tasks and to be successful. to create a harmonious and balanced team as much as possible. Some are more into warfare, others are more into building, researching, crafting or farming, but each also takes a special interest in each of these areas, allowing for a variety of survivors that lead to different effects.

Exploration, construction and research

The first steps are taken right next to the shuttle wreckage, and after some initial confusion for the group, we start here. fundraisingcollects food rations, first aid kits, tools and metal parts that are still usable. Still a few meters from the burning body, we find ourselves building the first makeshift bunkers to face the night, as time flies inexorably and survivors have physiological needs to be satisfied, starting with the need to eat and sleep to achieve more specialized needs. personal satisfaction and psychological well-being. Once you’ve built huts and beds, bonfires for heating and cooking, you can start expanding the range a bit and aiming for longer survival, so it’s essential to start looking around.

While the surrounding nature appears largely terrestrial – a somewhat dubious element considering the game’s foundation – the fauna and flora are clearly foreign and require observation sessions to fully understand.

It is then essential to send characters to study new species in order to gain any advantage from them regarding kitchen use or building materials. Thanks to the classic layout of benches and research desks,technological evolution Even if the group’s survival is by no means underestimated, given the aggression that characterizes the local fauna, and the road still long, poised to become a new micro-civilization on the alien planet. The trial version does not yet offer specific deviations or any real narrative progression, so the scale of the experience still seems limited to pure survival, but once the most advanced technological build was triggered and the most extensive crops began to cope with a larger area. simulation.

survival anywhere

The deep, almost scientific approach Haemimont Games has imposed on Stranded: Alien Dawn is admirable, starting with the management of individual characters, leaving little or nothing to chance. this skills and tendencies Most of these lead to certain actions and reactions that make sense in the situations they find themselves in, because in addition to player-imposed activities, everyone still has to follow a semi-automatic physiological cycle of feeding and resting. or less appreciated and results in different levels of effectiveness of actions. In addition to physical health, there is, in short, trying to keep the group together in order to keep up with the mental health of the survivors and cope with the threats of the surrounding environment.

These also provide the real ones fights: standard activities between research, crafting and construction are often interspersed with more intense action moments where the game turns into a real-time strategy game. In these situations we have to adequately arm the characters (possibly by researching and building more powerful tools) and bring them into battle by controlling their movement and choosing enemies to hit semi-automatically. At the moment, skirmishes don’t seem particularly exciting with the purely mechanical and straight course of combat, but given the alien environment, it’s possible that much more stimulating and diverse elements will emerge in the near future.

A little extra and too terrestrial?

Although the genre usually does not need large tools for representation, graphic, Stranded: Alien Dawn is staged with great care to show how much Haemimont Games has bet on this project. Scenarios, builds, and characters present themselves at their best, very detailed, even more than necessary for a game of this type, both at wider viewing angles with farsightedness and by zooming in to the maximum to get the scenes in close framing. . Even the interface always looks very clear and manages to summarize a large amount of information in the smallest possible space, making the complex and layered management as suggested in this game quite practical beyond some questionable choices like the combined use of mouse and keyboard. but to move the shot which can be changed via options.

As mentioned earlier, the questionable element on the aesthetic front is connected, first of all, with the choice of staging settings that it seems to have. little “alien”. Rocky conformations and vegetation give panoramas very close to terrestrial ones; this is also emphasized by the insistence on situations not particularly connected with science fiction themes. This may have to do with the search for realism in the simulation, but it results in the game losing its identity, which is pretty weird even seeing Haemimont’s previous productions like Tropico and Surviving Mars.