A little too close to the sun
Those that know me, know that I enjoy a good survival game, which is wild because I was against them at the outset. There is something to be said about starting with nothing, literally gathering wood by punching trees. Only to end by having built a castle, three stables, and a small town. Ok, maybe not that much but you get the point, the progression in these games is awesome. So, when I learned that PC exclusive Icarus was coming to console, I was super excited as it was not only a survival game but it was on an alien planet, blending my love of sci-fi. Imagine my surprise when I loaded into the game only to find an experience more akin to a roguelite.
MSRP: $34.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $34.99
When Icarus originally launched on PC, it was session-based with time-sensitive missions where once your objective was reached, you would be extracted. Hence the roguelite feeling, as anything you built on the surface would be lost. Luckily the developers added the more traditional open survival mode later and if you are playing on console, you get everything all at once, you lucky player you. But as much as I love the more open mode, I do feel like the underlying structure of the session-based mode translates well to console users; especially for those that want to play these games without it feeling like a demanding second job.
Icarus world is a dangerous one, not only are there creatures and plants who will want to kill the player but even nature itself. Players will have to plan when to build their shelters as Icarus has a working storm system that can cause all kinds of havok. In one of my early runs, I had finally got a nice sized house set up, moments later a lightning storm kicks up. The lightning strikes catch the trees on fire and before I know it, I am dealing with a forest fire. But in the midst of all that the wind was kicking up and began to take pieces of my newly constructed thatch home with it. Once it was all over, I learned an important lesson, Icarus is a hardcore survival game.
But even though its world is going to take a lot of dedication from its players, they should be prepared for the game to fight them every step of the way. What I mean is, lawd have mercy does this game have issues on Xbox. The UI glitches and gets frozen, the overall interface isn’t built with a controller in mind so it’s extraordinarily clumsy to navigate. This is the ONE time I would love to have a cursor like system from Destiny; alas. Now I will say that this game has received a lot of love during the review period, so the developers are willing to put in the work; which is nice.
As I said about Icarus is a hardcore game, the systems and how they interact with each other is quite deep. This isn’t the easy-going experience of Ark, and with little to no direction given to players, I can see players being turned off. And then there is the terrible UI system; as I said above Icarus had received updates during the review period so hope remains strong that the developers can yet address these issues.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
