I've been playing this a fair bit recently, and I have to say I'm rather smitten with it. I'll say straight up that this game is a proper time monster, it can take a little while before you feel powerful enough to really start making serious progress and exerting your will upon the world, but it's well worth it. I tend to play when there's a stream or podcast on that I can have up on the second screen, it's a good game for that. And it's pretty amenable to being played every so often, it's dead easy to pick back up where you left off as the gameplay is simple and there's no quests in the traditional sense.

Here's the features blurb from the Steam page (it's also on CDKeys for a tenner I think) -

A free-roaming squad based RPG focusing on open-ended sandbox gameplay features rather than a linear story. Be a trader, a thief, a rebel, a warlord, an adventurer, a farmer, a slave, or just food for the cannibals.

Research new equipment and craft new gear. Purchase and upgrade your own buildings to use as safe fortified havens when things go bad, or use them to start up a business. Aid or oppose the various factions in the world while striving for the strength and wealth necessary to simply survive in the harsh desert. Train your men up from puny victims to master warriors. Carry your wounded squad mates to safety and get them all home alive.


Freeform gameplay in a seamless game world in the largest single-player RPG world since Daggerfall, stretching over 870 square kilometers. The game will never seek to limit you or restrict your personal play style.

Custom design as many characters as you want and build up a whole squad to fight for you. Characters will grow and become stronger with experience, not just in their stats but their appearance too.

Original take on the RTS-RPG hybrid genre. No "hero" characters with artificially stronger stats than everybody else- Every character and NPC you meet is potentially an equal, and has a name, a life.

You are not the chosen one. You're not great and powerful. You don't have more 'hitpoints' than everyone else. You are not the center of the universe, and you are not special. Unless you work for it.

Build a base where you can research new technologies, upgrade your defences and craft new gear.

Purchase and upgrade your own buildings to use as safe fortified havens when things go bad, or use them to start up a business.

Variation and possibilities of gameplay. Be good, be evil, be a businessman, be a thief, live in a town, live in the desert, travel alone, travel in hordes, build a fortress, raze a city. Devote yourself to freeing slaves, or maybe end up a slave yourself.

Dynamic, ever changing world. Support or hinder whoever you wish, or keep to yourself, the world won't stop moving. This is not just a "game", you are living and surviving in a simulated world.

Get captured by cannibals and eaten alive, or sold off by slavers and forced to work in the mines. These are not scripted events, just a regular part of this chaotic world that ruins your life by chance. Anything can happen, yet anything can be overcome if you have the strength.

Absolutely no Level-scaling. The world does not level up along with you, and the shops don't change their inventory to only items matching your level. At the start of the game almost everyone will be stronger than you, and survival will always be a struggle. The game won't hold your hand or help you when you're down.

Realistic medical system that affects gameplay. A character with a wounded leg will limp or crawl and slow the party down, wounded arms means you must use your sword one-handed or not at all. Severe injuries will result in amputees needing robotic limb replacements. Blood loss means you can pass out, and the blood will attract predators. A character’s stats are affected by equipment, encumbrance, blood loss, injuries and starvation.

Intelligent AI that allows for characters to reason and work towards long-term goals and desires. Squads work together and carry their wounded to safety. Characters can be setup to take care of micromanagement for you and run production in your base.

Aid or oppose the various factions in the world while striving for the strength and wealth necessary to simply survive in the harsh environment.

Independently developed with no design influences, or alterations dictated by men in gray suits who have never played a game before in their lives.

Original game world. There are no fantasy-knock-off cliches. No magic.

I would say that all that is pretty accurate, except that the "AI that allows for characters to reason and work towards long-term goals and desires" isn't really, they're pretty basic automatons that will do what you tell them, AFAIK there isn't really any kind simulated psychology of the characters that makes them want to leave your group or go nuts. The reason part isn't really there but they are generally smart enough to do the tasks you set them with pathfinding etc. There is some neat dialogue between characters that sometimes pops up when you're journeying about with them -



I believe they are working on more dynamic stuff for the sequel though. As it is it definnitely has more of a feel of being dropped into a living world than say, a typical Bethesda game which tend to feel dead unless the player is turning the cogs to make scripted things happen. There's plenty of opportunity for fun emergent stuff to kick off, like getting opposing factions to fight each other for some enjoyable chaos you can exploit.



It definitely has a feel of something like Morrowind actually, in the cool weirdness of the creature and world designs and in how it doesn't restrict the player from exploiting things and getting insanely powerful. I've put like 70+ hours in and I feel like I'm just getting started, I've hardly explored the very large and interesting map -



This has elements of various CRPGs, Rimworld, Fallout/Elder Scrolls, Neo Scavenger, Mount & Blade, etc. It's just a really interesting and fairly unique experience that I highly recommend checking out, even if you just explore there's some really cool bits of buildings and animal design to find. I didn't know when I started but I've really gotten into the base building side of it, which is surprisingly solid and enjoyable even if you don't do much exploring. You will need to venture further afield and gather specific supplies eventually though.



It's just a really cool alternative sort of RPG that I don't think many people are that aware of, even after watching a couple of streamers play it I found my experience to be quite different, there's just so many ways to approach and your story will grow organically. I recommend going in pretty blind, the basic tutorial messages are not overlong and very helpful, it doesn't take long to figure out the interface and get up to speed.

Oh and don't be disheartened by defeat, anything that doesn't outright kill just makes your characters stronger...