Survival simulators appear in large numbers every year, and many of them begin their journey in the early access stage. The same thing happened with Sunkenland, which was released on Steam at the end of August 2023. This game tries to take the best of the already popular representatives of the genre. At some points she does it well, and at others not so much. I’ll tell you more about this in this review.
Since Sunkenland is in early access, be prepared for bugs. There are a lot of them here and you come across them quite often. The errors are not so critical that they make the project unplayable, but also not so small that you ignore them. But the optimization pleasantly surprised me. I’m already used to the fact that “survival” games often run with low FPS, so I have to lower the settings even on top configurations, but Sunkenland, as the classics said, works surprisingly well. Now the most important thing for developers is to fix bugs and add more content to the release.
Sunkenland takes place in a post-apocalyptic future world where water has covered most of the planet. Players will have to rebuild their own base, explore the world, including flooded cities, fight enemies and trade with allies. The game begins with the main character (or characters, if you are playing in co-op) finding yourself on one of the islands. His main goal is to survive in this harsh world.
According to the canons of the genre, the first thing you need to do is build a very simple house made of wood, create basic tools and wooden weapons so that you have something to protect yourself. You can then visit nearby islands in search of loot and even explore the underwater world. Almost everyone you meet (except merchants) will be hostile towards you.
In general, at its core, the gameplay of Sunkenland is similar to many other cooperative survival simulators. The point is that you need to go to the islands where representatives of various factions live, kill every single one there, and then collect all the loot and return to base. At home, you can use the extracted resources to, for example, craft new equipment for yourself or install a new workbench. From time to time you will also have to fight off attacks from mutants and not forget about thirst and hunger. Once you’ve explored the entire map, you can consider yourself to have “beaten the game.”
On your first playthrough, exploring the world with friends is really fun. You always want to find out what lies behind the next question mark marked on the map. Perhaps this is what kept my interest in Sunkenland in the first few hours. However, everything related to crafting and mining is currently done at the most primitive level. There are few types of resources, as well as items that can be made from them, and many of them are located almost everywhere – some in larger quantities, and some in smaller quantities. Because of this, all the islands look rather monotonous. You know from the very beginning that at the next point you will find a broken car, a pile of scrap metal, a wooden barrel and/or a chest. No revelations.
The impressions are also spoiled by numerous disadvantages, which in theory can be corrected for release. The game has a very strange artificial intelligence – the enemies sometimes don’t see you at point-blank range, sometimes they shoot through the walls. Many of the sounds are terrible – for example, ore mining is accompanied by sounds reminiscent of the whistling of bullets. Water constantly passes through the texture of the boat, which can make it seem like you are drowning. But the saddest thing is that you cannot move installed objects (you are only allowed to break them). It’s probably stupid to find fault with such things in a game that is in early access, but not talking about them in the review would also be dishonest to the readers.
Of course, you shouldn’t expect anything great from the graphics in Sunkenland, since this game is from indie developers in early access. In some places it’s not bad, but in others it’s quite soapy. However, the water is made well – this cannot be taken away. The overall picture is only spoiled by the animations, which are either wooden or completely absent. The musical accompaniment is also monotonous – throughout the game we hear one monotonous melody, which only changes to another during battles.
Despite all the shortcomings, I can’t call Sunkenland a bad game. Playing it with friends is really interesting in the first 10-15 hours, when you are just mastering the content. Then it becomes a bit boring due to the paucity of mechanics and monotony. I advise you to try it only for those who have already played enough of other “survival” games and are now looking for something new. For the rest, it’s better to wait for the full release before making a final purchasing decision.
