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The Daily Grind: How can survival sandboxes keep the challenge fresh?
Shawn and I have had several conversations about the conundrum present in Fallen Earth. Namely, that the first part of the game is really exciting because you get that cool feeling of scrounging for survival and clawing your way out of the wasteland -- but then this turns into a different game when "survival" makes way for "laser tag with high-tech gear in PvP zones." It's made me wonder how MMOs that are being built with a survival sandbox angle are planning to keep that sense of challenge and building yourself up fresh. I think that there's a point in these games where you have accumulated and built enough to keep yourself comfortable unless the game deliberately removes that attained protection or keeps escalating the danger past the point of lunacy. So this is our thinking exercise for the day: How can survival sandboxes keep the challenge fresh for players? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Evil Within scares up August 26 launch date
The Evil Within will launch August 26 in North America and August 29 in Europe, Bethesda announced today. The latest from esteemed Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, The Evil Within will arrive on PC, Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360 and PS3. The Evil Within casts players as Detective Sebastian Castellanos, who's investigating the scene of a mass-murder before being ambushed and knocked unconscious, waking to a deranged world full of gruesome creatures. The game was first announced in April 2013 and is developed by Tango Gameworks, a Japan-based division of ZeniMax Asia founded in March 2010 by Mikami. Our hands-off demo of the game at E3 2013 saw the immediate impact of Mikami's direction. [Image: Bethesda Softworks]
World of Darkness drawing inspiration from sandbox survival games while EVE CE goes on sale
CCP assured World of Darkness fans that the project is "evolving rapidly" despite recent layoffs, will have a presence at Fanfest in May, and is even taking cues from sandbox survival games for its development. CCP CEO Hilmar Pétursson told RPS that survival games have given the team inspiration for World of Darkness' social dynamics: "DayZ and Rust have shown us the power of a sandbox when you bring it into a more recognizable context. The creators of those experiences often reference EVE Online as an inspiration for their things. We're now cross-inspired by what we're seeing there. How the absence of all these structured game mechanics -– by just allowing these natural interactions to happen -– that is something we're definitely incorporating into how we think about World of Darkness." Speaking of EVE, the space game's collector edition has gone on sale for $99.99. This 33% discount will last from today through February 17th.
Nether adds crafting, creature mode, and tribes
The mean streets of Nether are easing up a bit on players, as Phosphor Games has patched in a slew of helpful systems for its February update. The trio of new features includes crafting, a creature mode, and tribes. Crafting encourages players to scavenge from their adventures and fashion gear and weapons to use and trade. If being a bad guy is your thing, then the new creature mode allows users to step into the twisted role of a nether to stalk victims. And tribes, Nether's version of guilds, are now in the game with bases, a skill tree, and special objectives to be patched in later in the month. Players who join a tribe from now through February 15th will earn special bonuses including currency and a free uniform. We've got a video showing some of the February update features after the jump, so get a move on, little doggy! [Source: Phosphor Games press release]
Nether's January update introduces dirt bikes and group options
The survival horror world of Nether continues to take form and shape as the devs are introducing the year's first update this week. The big addition that will come in this patch is the dirt bike, which gives players a faster means of navigating the post-apocalyptic landscape. Of course, when you do so you'll be making an awful racket and since the enemies are very sensitive to all sound, any riders will probably enjoy a few breezy minutes of transportation followed by a few painful minutes of being disembowled. The patch is also including group features such as group chat, invites, nametags, and locations on the map. There are also some new cosmetic items to check out (Russian hat, anyone?) and plenty of fixes for various bugs. We've got the video of the dirt bike in action after the break.
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Seven zombie-infested MMOs for the survivalist in you
Let's talk zombies and post-apocalyptic futures. Sure, the undead have become an overused and watered-down genre, but it's easy to see just why it's so successful -- it practically has something for everyone. The horror fans love it for obvious reasons; there's nothing scarier than the reanimated dead. Sandbox fans and survivalist maniacs love that it represents what happens to society when everything -- and I mean everything -- breaks down. MMO fans adore it because it's all about teamwork and developing a society from the ground up alongside other people. So even though the genre is getting spread a bit thin, it's still as promising as any other. I thought it'd be a good idea to round up many of the current zombie MMOs and pseudo-MMOs so that over the holidays you can celebrate by ignoring your family to bash in a few previously deceased skulls. You can thank me later when all of the training you receive while playing these games helps you survive the coming zombie apocalypse.
Slender: The Arrival gets spooky on Steam October 28
Survival horror game Slender: The Arrival will launch October 28 on Steam. The spooky adventure will set players back $9.99, and will launch on consoles in 2014. Slender: The Arrival is a re-imagining of Parsec Productions' free indie game Slender: The Eight Pages. The game is written by the Marble Hornets team, a documentary-style webseries centered around the popular Slenderman mythos. Slender: The Arrival places players in the role of Laura, a realtor that is assisting her friend Kate in selling her house. Kate goes missing, leaving Laura to search for her with a camcorder in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
Lone Survivor: Director's Cut makes well-timed jump to PC, Mac on Halloween
Superflat Games' spooky survival-horror adventure, Lone Survivor: Director's Cut, is set to grace the PC and Mac on October 31 – just in time for Halloween. In Lone Survivor, the world has been ravaged by disease and, playing as a nameless protagonist in a surgical mask, you must avoid monsters and scavenge for supplies. In a blog post, creator Jasper Byrne says the updated version of the game will be available as a free download to anyone who has already picked up the game. The blog post adds that save files from the original game will be compatible with Director's Cut, so you can start in one version of the game and continue in the other. In order to ease some of the financial strain as a result of developing this new version of the game for ten months, Superflat Games will determine a new price point for Director's Cut when it launches on Halloween. Lone Survivor: Director's Cut will be available through the official website, Good Old Gaming and other digital distribution channels.
See the dark side of survival in Nether's live-action trailer
Last month, we gave you a deeper look into the post-apocalyptic survival game Nether being developed by Phosphor Games. Today, the studio announced that pre-orders for the game will grant early access and allow players to try their hand at survival against the mutated monstrosities starting (fittingly) on October 31st, 2013. Additionally, pre-orders will net 72-hour game keys to share with friends, as well as other in-game perks. Creative Director Chip Sineni stated, "As an online multiplayer game, we feel strongly that the focus is on community collaboration so we want to reward the early players with solid pre-order incentives and really make them a part of the future of the rich, urban environment that is Nether." Along with the announcement, the studio released a new live-action trailer. If you want to get a feel for the game, check out the video after the cut. Then if you like what you see, join the community and help direct the development path of future content in Nether. [Source: Phosphor Games press release]
Claire scared in new horror game on Steam Greenlight
A girl and her dog are trapped and stalked in the nightmarish world of Claire, a 2D horror game currently looking for votes on Steam Greenlight and aiming to launch on PC, Mac and Linux. Claire follows the protagonist and her canine companion through several stages of life, in a tale that eventually uncovers her connection to a bizarre world. As a spooky story, Claire adheres to certain tenets of the survival-horror genre, like scrounging for items, managing supplies and helping others trapped in the environment. Enemies, which appear to be black clouds of evil, can be defeated by the light – flashlights and flashbang grenades are specifically mentioned on the Steam Greenlight page. The game, which is currently in alpha, also promises to have a built-in editor for creating and sharing custom levels. Hailstorm Games hopes to launch Claire in October or November of this year.
Outlast promises new demo at PAX, doesn't promise to clean your pants
Outlast was placed front and center as part of the PS4's love letter to indie games, and as we mentioned when we saw it at E3, it's pretty damn creepy. But perhaps you're made of sterner stuff. Perhaps you consider yourself unshakeable. Unscareable. Just that damn brave. Well, challenge accepted, says developer Red Barrels, who's giving you a few different options for testing your mettle against the frightening confines of Outlast's abandoned Mount Massive Asylum. First, they'd like to bribe you with a discount. Starting today and stretching through the game's PC launch on September 4, you can snip 20% off the $19.99 asking price if you pre-order on Steam. If that's not enough to entice you, you could attend the "Guide to Survival Horror" panel at PAX Prime next week, where Outlast developer David Chateauneuf will explain how he goes about trying to get players to wet their pants. That option has Joystiq's own Susan Arendt (that's me!) thrown in as an extra bonus. (I'm also on that panel.) If neither of those are enough to sway you - well, frankly, my feelings will be a little hurt that you don't want to come see me - Red Barrels will also have a brand new Outlast demo on hand. If it's anything like the last one, it will make you yelp like a small dog and question the life choices that brought you to that booth.
Nether gives unique twist to post-apocalyptic survival
Stop us if you've heard this game before: It's some time after the apocalypse, and you're one of the final survivors scrounging about for parts and gear to carve out a niche of safety. While that might sound like every zombie survival game that's come out in the wake of DayZ, Nether is eschewing zombies for something more insidious -- and interesting. The titular creatures are mutants that hunt by sound and teleport around, requiring players to adopt new strategies as they try to make it. The newly announced Nether is a persistent MMOish (well, 64 players per server) game where players explore West Chicago in the hopes of finding that one weapon or crate of goods that's needed to survive another night. Or you could just go to Chicago right now in real life and do the same thing. Phosphor Games Creative Director Chip Sineni says his title won't be the same-old zombiethon: "Our focus is to veer away from some of the 'traditional' survival-horror offerings in order to provide something new for the genre, with a great urban setting, a different type of story and an experience that excites us as fans and will be something definitely fresh and new for gamers." Nether is in alpha testing with an eye on a fall 2013 release for the PC and is currently accepting beta signups. You can check out its reveal trailer after the jump!
Neverending Nightmares Video Preview
Of all the things that developer Matt Gilgenbach could have created after Retro/Grade, a rhythm-based shooter in reverse, a horror game seemed among the least likely. Enter Neverending Nightmares, a horror adventure game inspired by the psychological themes of Silent Hill 2 and the defenseless tension of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. But Neverending Nightmares is also the result of a more personal inspiration, Gilgenbach's own struggle with mental illness. Diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, Gilgenbach has woven many of his own experiences into Neverending Nightmares, infusing it with a genuine, sometimes jarring horror. See it for yourself (if you dare) in our video preview. Neverending Nightmares is slated to launch in late 2014, and a Kickstarter for the project is planned to launch soon. Those who want a firsthand look can check out the game later this month at PAX Prime, where it will be shown in booth 885.%Gallery-194694%
Lone Survivor delayed to September
Point-and-click survival horror game Lone Survivor has been delayed to September, Curve Studios announced via Twitter. The game's designer, Jasper Byrne, recently noted that Curve Studios' port of the game to PS3 and Vita has led to "hundreds of tiny little changes and improvements." It was originally planned to arrive on Sony's consoles this summer. Since the game "has a lot of new hidden, dark corners" and "even looks and sounds pretty different," Byrne said the PS3 and Vita version will be known as Lone Survivor: The Director's Cut. Curve Studios said it would "rather release an amazing game later than a good game early."
Hands-on: Infestation: Survivor Stories, aka War Z, is worse than actually being killed by zombies
If there's one thing we know about the games industry, it's that no success goes uncopied. World of Warcraft breaks a million subscribers, everyone starts building WoW-like MMOs. Minecraft showers its creator with enough money to buy his home country, voxel-based crafting games fall like rain. It's just how things go. It should come as no surprise, then, that some studio somewhere would attempt to piggyback on the success of DayZ, Dean Hall's ridiculously popular mod for Arma II. The title, which drops players into a dangerous, zombie-filled open world and challenges them to survive, resonated so immensely with gamers that a clone wasn't so much probable as it was inevitable. But Infestation: Survivor Stories, formerly known as The War Z, is more than just a clone of DayZ. It is a charmless, cynical, and craven rip-off packaged with one of the most sinister microtransaction models ever implemented into a game, and it's developed by a company that has on multiple occasions proven itself to be only shades away from a dedicated fraud factory.
7 Days to Die has 27 days to raise funds
Excuse me, but you got your zombies all over my Minecraft. What, that's the intent? Well then, carry on! Dubbing itself "the survival horde crafting game," 7 Days to Die is appealing to Kickstarter patrons to help fund this new title to completion. The game puts players in an Arizona county that has largely survived nuclear fallout but is infested with zombies throughout. Players will scavenge for materials, level up classes, build up defenses to survive each night, and use destructible terrain and buildings to their advantage. It remains to be seen whether or not 7 Days to Die crosses over into MMO space; the creators boast a multiplayer feature that may be expanded if stretch goals are met. The Fun Pimps, the developing studio, is looking to raise $200,000 to expand its full-time team. We've got the pre-alpha trailer for you to check out after the break. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
State of Decay review: Don't stop
Don't stop or you'll die. This is the prevailing theme of State of Decay, Undead Labs' sandbox survival-horror game for Xbox Live Arcade. It's a game focused on the chores of survival in a post-apocalyptic world: scavenging for supplies in vacant buildings; trading with and aiding neighboring groups; comforting and managing emotional states of your own survivors; and, of course, dealing with the occasional zombie attack on your home. State of Decay is constantly pulling you in many directions, making it difficult to decide what mission you should take next or what resource you should hunt down. The deluge of missions, radio messages and scavenging cycles never stops, and the hostile nature of the environment itself hardly provides incentive for pause to soak in the scenery.%Gallery-190683%
The Forest inspired by Cannibal Holocaust, walking the paid alpha path
Last week, we got our first taste of The Forest, an upcoming first-person survival-horror game for PC and Oculus Rift, set in a mysterious forest where players must scavenge supplies, build and prepare to defend against a nocturnal indigenous society of cannibals. If you read that last sentence aloud in one dizzying breath, then you have a good idea how excited we are for The Forest. But here's the thing: there isn't much information out there. So we contacted developer Ben Falcone for a tour of The Forest.%Gallery-188147%
'The Forest' puts on Oculus Rift, goes exploring
The Forest is a first-person horror game currently in development for the PC and Oculus Rift. After surviving a plane crash at the outset of the game, players must build and thrive in a mysterious forest, scavenging materials throughout the day and defending against an indigenous enemy by night. Developer Ben Falcone promises changing weather and tides that shift with the day/night cycle. Players will have to chop down trees to build and make fires, scavenge food or plant seeds to grow, while traps will be necessary to maintain a safe perimeter and defend the home. On the game's about page, the nocturnal ne'er-do-wells are described as "a clan of genetic mutant enemies that have beliefs, families and morals." The Forest is tentatively scheduled to launch in late 2013, and is now vying for a spot on Steam Greenlight.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Survival Horror Story: Catequesis
It's not that there are too many indie games; it's that there aren't enough hours in a day to play all of them. The Joystiq Indie Pitch curates the best indies to play now and watch out for in the future. What's your game called and what's it about?Survival Horror Story: Catequesis tells the story of Daniel, meeting his girlfriend's parents for the first time. His girlfriend, Sophie, confesses to him that her father suffers from an incurable disease and the only way to save him is to perform a religious rite led by her neighbour Isabel. Something turns out badly, weird creatures seize the building and Sophie and Isabel disappear. Fate makes Daniel walk along the floors of that old structure and its core, facing different horrors on his attempt to rescue Sophie and end the curse.What's the meaning behind the game's name? Do you worry an unfamiliar name might prevent fans from talking about it?Catequesis is the Spanish word for "catechesis," which in the Catholic religion is education in the faith and doctrine. So imagine how interesting the catechesis can be in a different, horrible and hideous new religion. Anyway, I wanted to put a complete name, more explicit and clear, with "Survival Horror Story," a great definition of our game.
