Typical survival mechanics like managing hunger and thirst levels, as well as keeping track of how often you’re sleeping, aren’t present at all. That must mean, then, that survival is where Dysmantle’s other main focus lies, but that isn’t quite true either. All crafting comes in the form of upgrades to your weapons, clothing, resource gathering tools, and survival instruments. You can’t put up walls to cut off groups of zombies (or ex-humans as the game cutely calls them) or to build a shelter from the cold. There isn’t much, if any, structure building here. That’s where the problems with the crafting come in, however. I frequently caught myself picking up Dysmantle when I had a small break from work meaning to play a quick 30 minutes and found myself still playing two hours later with enough wood to build a sizable house in the middle of the forest. Resource mining and crafting have a great loop that can get addicting. however, that slows down a significant amount and you can think much more critically about what tools will be necessary to get more resources and progress quests even further. Right off the bat, you can’t find a whole lot of resources given the limitations of the dinky crowbar, but as you level up, you’ll be able to invent all sorts of different tools that provide new options for breaking things.ĭysmantle starts off a tad overwhelming when it comes to the pacing of learning new crafting recipes you have far more items to craft than you could ever hope to make. In terms of crafting, Dysmantle gets a lot correct based on how well executed the progression is. That said, it’s a nice hands-off approach to storytelling that can serve as a welcome break from the extremely cinematic and involved narratives of AAA gaming, though, that means that anyone looking for even the slightest bit of character out of Dysmantle’s survival narrative might leave the experience disappointed.īecause of how much of a backseat it’s given, it’s clear that the story isn’t the focus here: instead, Dysmantle points you to its crafting and survival mechanics. Unfortunately, they don’t have much personality and, because the radios are strewn about the giant world, I felt like I was missing a good chunk of what’s going on because I knew I wasn't going to be able to find them all. Generally, the only overarching story beats revolve around the mystery of what actually happened on the island, but that information is typically relegated to broadcasted audio logs from someone who seems to be the only other person alive on the island. In terms of a central story, that’s about it, but there are plenty of smaller, more contained narratives going on through the many side quests you'll discover while exploring the island. From there, the entire objective of Dysmantle is about collecting the proper resources to leave the island and upgrading your gear to stay alive long enough to finally travel elsewhere. When their food supply runs out, they leave their solitary life to try and escape their island home with nothing other than a crowbar and a backpack. The unnamed player character has been hiding in an underground bunker Fallout-style to avoid the worst that the apocalypse has to offer. Dysmantle Review: Break 'emĭysmantle starts simply enough: it’s been a few years since the end of the world brought about by a mysterious zombie infection. Between fighting my way through zombies, harvesting resources, and exploring the abandoned cities and countrysides that the island setting has to offer, I found that there's quite the competent survival/crafting game hidden beneath Dysmantle's surface.Īlthough it might take a few hours for all of its elements to really come together and though it's not as deep in some areas as I wanted, the quality of the primary loops make up for a lot of shortcomings that might weigh the experience down.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |