REVIEW : ICARUS (PC)

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REVIEW : ICARUS (PC)

REVIEW : ICARUS (PC)

ICARUS is an eight-player co-op session-based PvE survival game.

On Icarus, humanity’s biggest blunder, you must survive a hostile alien wasteland. Explore, harvest, craft, and hunt while seeking your fortune in this harsh environment.

Prospectors drop to the planet’s surface for limited time periods from their orbiting station, where they learn to cope with the foreign environment, execute faction assignments, and search for rare exotic resources. Those that make it back to orbit as seasoned veterans convert their exotics into advanced technology and take on increasingly difficult drops with their newfound knowledge. Those who are left behind are forever lost.

REVIEW : ICARUS (PC)

Surviving on Icarus (the planet you’re on) entails keeping your character fed via hunting for meat or gathering fruits and vegetables, as well as remaining hydrated by discovering usable water sources. Not only that, but you’ll need to keep an eye on your breathing air metre, just like in Subnautica, because the planet’s atmosphere is extremely poisonous to humans. It’s time to start prospering in the wilderness once your fundamental requirements are addressed, and you may start by making things like primitive stone tools and thatch houses. In Icarus, doing almost anything will earn you experience points, which you may utilise to enhance your character through technical advancement and survival abilities.

All of you who have played games like this will be familiar with the gameplay loop of gradually improving equipment (stone tools become iron tools, and so on), but it is here that Icarus begins to stray from the route and establishes itself as a serious challenger for your time.

REVIEW : ICARUS (PC)

Before I go into the twist on character development, I need to talk about the game’s overall structure, which is also extremely different from what fans of the genre might expect. In most survival/crafting games, your character wakes up in an unfamiliar place with no explanation and a plethora of things to kill, eat, and construct. Icarus, on the other hand, gives players a narrative rationale for their predicament and asks you to willfully put yourself in danger with nothing to lose, numerous times. Icarus (the planet) is the result of a failed terraforming operation that has changed the environment into one that can only support genetically modified plants and animals. The cause of such a disastrous occurrence is a previously unknown (and extremely expensive) element called Exotic, which lies buried beneath the planet’s surface. Desperate people, dubbed Prospectors, are cashing in everything they own and heading to to risk it all in the search for a great payday, in a movement that echoes the real-life gold rush of our own past.

REVIEW : ICARUS (PC)

Even though you start with nothing each time you choose a prospect, your level of expertise and unlocked technology remains constant. For example, my first few missions were chaotic affairs in which I rushed around eating berries and gathering sticks to create a spear to defend my small plot of land from ravenous wolves. I was able to acquire the ability to make axes, bows, arrows, and small houses as I progressed through the levels. In a similar way to an RPG system, gaining experience grants you skill points, which you may use to increase your character’s base statistics (damage output, resource consumption benefits, and so on). When I returned to orbit after completing that mission, I chose another job and returned immediately. Despite the fact that everything I’d constructed and crafted was gone, I was still able to build anything I’d been able to before without having to unlock it again, and my stat gains were still active. You can resurrect at your initial drop zone if you fall asleep (die) during your adventure, but all experience points that count toward your next level will be frozen and must be re-earned before you can earn any more. This is extremely harsh in later stages, although it can be mitigated by playing with a friend, which I’ll discuss later.

Although for some, development and evolution are sufficient rewards, completing prospects also earns you various levels of the in-game cash. This is employed in a different progression tree, which allows your character to get access to ever more advanced technology. The coolest aspect is that you can carry items unlocked in orbit with you on and off the planet. This means you’ll be able to unlock and construct items like clothing and tools that you can bring with you to later prospects, saving you time when you arrive. If you land fully armed with a sci-fi 3D-printed pickaxe, you won’t need to scrape together a stone pickaxe! However, keep in mind that you must bring these instruments back with you when you finish your prospect; otherwise, they will be lost forever, and you will have to spend your hard-earned money to acquire another. Later on, finer gear necessitates the expenditure of Exotic material collected from the planet during your numerous journeys. After all, nothing worthwhile ever comes without a cost. It’s also worth noting that if you die on Icarus, your advancement and saved currency in orbit will be preserved, so you won’t lose all of your hard-earned riches.

The final point I want to make is how beautiful this game looks and sounds. Everything is stunning, from the rich, lush forest floor to the scary polar bears lurking in the bleak snowdrifts. Even though you’re worried about losing your little belongings to the strong winds, it’s a sonic delight when a fatal rainstorm threatens to blow down your dilapidated hut. When it comes to games like this, I’m usually tolerant, especially when they’re developed by smaller development teams, but it doesn’t feel like any compromises were made in bringing Icarus to life.

REVIEW : ICARUS (PC)

Aside from a rocky start and a few technical issues I found while playing, I can’t say I have many complaints about Icarus. Despite the fact that this is a full release, there were still some early access components such as missing UI pieces, a few niggling quality of life concerns, and Coming Soon banners in some locations. However, because the game’s developers and community administrators are so active and helpful, there have been multiple hotfixes since I first started playing that have patched over many of the game’s flaws. It has the feel of a living game, and if you don’t mind a little dust here and there, you won’t have to deal with any problems for very long. Icarus, to be honest, is a bit of a puzzle. It’s fun and gratifying to construct structures while fending off wildlife and nature’s wrath. After making painstakingly meticulous preparations, setting out over the arctic or a scorching desert makes you feel like a survival badass. Then there are the balancing issues, bugs, disconnections, falling through the world, and other technological hiccups that destroy everything.

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review-icarus-pcIt takes hours of pure pleasure to build a fantastic house that can withstand the harsh elements and allows you to not only live but thrive. Icarus can be a lot of fun, a lot of work, and a lot of brutality... I simply wish the harshness wasn't the result of technical difficulties.

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