REVIEW : AWAY: The Survival Series (PS5)
Recreating the chaotic life of the animal kingdom should not be an easy task. Still, Breaking Walls, an independent studio founded by Ubisoft veterans, has tried to make it happen with AWAY: The Survival Series. It is a third-person adventure video game with platforms and some action that has animals instead of anthropomorphic characters as protagonists. Its two game modes, one focused on history and the other one on free exploration, allow us to put ourselves in the shoes of several creatures that roam freely in a world without humans.
All this, in addition to achieving something similar to a “playable documentary,” as the study repeatedly repeats in the descriptions of the game. For this, they have devised a voice-over narration system through which the actions we carry out during the adventure are recounted. With this and two or three other strong points, such as Mike Raznick’s soundtrack, AWAY: The Survival Series has arrived on PS5, PS4 and PC after attracting attention with its peculiar proposal, and will soon also be released on Xbox One, although for this there is still no estimated release date.
Gliders in danger
Although AWAY: The Survival Series has two game modes, the central experience is the story mode. In it, we control a glider, a rodent capable of gliding thanks to the fins it has, in an adventure guided by survival and in which on more than one occasion we will have to save our family. This is where we hear the voice-over of the narrator who tells us everything we do in the game, as well as giving us certain clues and, from time to time, a curious fact about the current life of the animal kingdom after the extinction of the humans of the face of the Earth.
As much as its creators insist that this game is like an interactive documentary, in reality, its forms are more similar to those of any third-person action platform: there will be jumps, many jumps, but also fighting against enemies, survival and Stealth. Unfortunately, none of these facets is well managed: the character’s jumps are rough and poorly calculated (so much so that it has been decided to add an auto-aiming button for landing), the combat does not fit well into the proposal and lacks precision, and the sections Stealth are tedious and not well-tuned.
It is curious to observe how all the mechanics inherited from more deeply rooted genres in the current video game industry are precisely those that fail. When the game gives us more freedom of movement and action, we can glimpse certain virtues in its proposal. In general, it is a fairly crude title (the animations, the weight of the character, the collisions and many other details are not refined). Still, there are sections in which what on paper is undoubtedly an interesting idea.
An idea that has sadly been overlapped by design decisions that feel fatal to it, such as an emotional story that remains somewhat ridiculous framed in that wild aesthetic of the animal kingdom (seeing two realistic design gliders ‘hugging’ is more comical than dramatic) or a level design that generally breaks the immersion in the natural world in which the game takes place; The platforms and obstacles that we must overcome are embodied in a realistic graphic style, but artificially integrated into the environment, like two logs turning non-stop in a stream of water that we have to use to avoid falling into it (we cannot swim unlimited shape) or a swaying log is hanging from a vine that we have to jump to reach another point on the level.
In addition, it is worth noting the number of bugs with which the game has been released. Both in the preliminary version that we have been able to play on PS5 before its launch and in the updated version with its launch patch, we have experienced a huge number of errors, from the overlapping of the lines of dialogue to other more serious ones with those that leave action buttons (like jumping, which stops you from moving forward). Breaking Walls has assured us that they are working on correcting them and have already solved many of them, but currently, they are still present.
Free exploration in a beautiful world
The problems with which AWAY: The Survival Series has been released are in its story mode and its exploration. Here they are somewhat more understandable because, in the end, it is a modality that allows us to control an entity capable of owning almost all the animals that we see on stage and move freely with them. There are various types of creatures, from frogs and lizards to grasshoppers, scorpions, or praying mantises, and each has its abilities, such as jumping higher, flying longer, or climbing trees.
The possibilities in this way are not unlimited. It is shocking to see restrictions such as that we cannot fly indefinitely with the butterfly or that toads cannot swim, like other animals, even though they are amphibians. The free exploration mode has a short fuse, and even, so it gives us to play a good time simply moving from one side to another trying not to die trying, looking for new animals to possess or taking photos with the tool designed for it.
Although limited, the option of freely exploring the world of AWAY: The Survival Series is undoubtedly the best of the work because it allows us to see its beautiful landscapes without the guides of the story mode. Furthermore, precisely the artistic design of the game in the merely static (the animations are another story) and in the generalities (the animal designs lose detail, for example) is one of the great strengths of the work thanks to the beauty of its natural surroundings dotted by remains of human ruins that testify to the history of a lost civilization. Finally, although it is not explored interestingly in either of the two modes, at least we can stay with a little interactive walk through its stages accompanied by a soundtrack composed by Mike Raznick. He has put music to more than 500 games, movies and even documentaries.
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