Quick Snipe o’ Shite is a quick and easy review series based on imparting as much knowledge in as few words as possible. Today, our quick snipe hovers its crosshairs over UnReal World, the Finnish roguelike survival game.
Quick Summary: UnReal World is a ultra-realistic survival game set in the Finnish Iron Age. Featuring a top-down multi-level map, you are tasked with surviving the cold winters and vicious bears and eking out a strip of land out in the dense forests of the wilderness.
If you’ve ever felt the need to sneak through a forest with a javelin in one hand and a bloodied club covered with matted fur and stag brain in the other, then UnReal World is for you. If you’ve ever wanted a real survival experience without a zombie in sight and simple nature as your worst enemy, then UnReal World is for you. If you’ve ever wanted to build a comfy log cabin with a roaring fireplace and spend cold winter days wiling the time away whittling wooden cups for trade, then UnReal World is for you. UnReal World, simply put, is the definitive roguelike survival game.
It’s an easy game to pick up but a hard one to master: several of the mechanics, such as the intricacies and depth of the animal AI, are not particularly easy to figure out. In fact, there are probably as many theories as to where it is best to set up your various traps and such as there are players of UnReal World. The lore of the world (such as it is) is quite abstract and strange, but it doesn’t particularly matter. This is a game about survival and discovery. There are no secret plots or convoluted storylines here except those you make yourself: it’s just about you fighting against starvation, the elements and fucking red-jacketed Njerpez bastards attacking you for no damn reason. And the occasional bear.
That is what makes UnReal so brilliant: it’s deceptively simple on the surface, but deeper as you journey further on. This isn’t a game you can just get all the best skills and stats and become an overpowered God-Emperor within the first 6 in-game months or so. Progression is slow in UnReal World, and preparation is the name of the game. It has what many similar wilderness survival games lack: a sense of genuine achievement in something that would, in other games, simply be considered basic. Building a log cabin takes weeks of work, and you could easily starve to death if you prioritize it over food. Hunting a reindeer involves chasing it for miles on foot, desperately trying to keep track of its footprints: I have yet to encounter a game that gives as much pure joy and satisfaction out of murdering an innocent animal for its meat and skin as UnReal World does. It’s a game about the simple things, and draws a huge amount of enjoyment out of simplistic actions.
UnReal World is a gem, and has been in development for years now. It is constantly being updated, but keep in mind it is completely free and designed to be supported on donations alone, so don’t expect massive overhauls overnight. In terms of gameplay, it is definitely a game that you get what you put in: there aren’t an enormous number of mechanics, but there are certainly enough to keep you entertained and they all work together brilliantly. If you haven’t already checked out UnReal World, go do it now you bloody great idiot.
Quick Snipe verdict: Rad as beating a bear to death with a stick.
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