An early access open world survival game with crafting mechanics and zombies… Are we stepping into a time portal back to 2013?
Devolver Digital, a publisher known for some incredible indie hits like Hotline Miami and Enter The Gungeon, has released SCUM for early access: a “Supermax Open World Survival”.
Although you are exhausted from this type of experience, SCUM is awesome. It’s still an Early Access title, but the gameplay is polished, bugs are few, and there’s a solid foundation here that only gets better. In terms of gameplay, the basics are the same as any other open-world survival out there: loot and craft your way from zero to hero. The lore and background on the other hand is quite unique. Everyone is a prisoner thrown into this arena as punishment. Drones fly around filming the prisoners as a kind of sadistic television program for outsiders. Currently, the drones only film for a while and get freaked out, but the developers have hinted at an ominous purpose in the future.
Reality TV basics of things aside, the goal is to survive, and right now there’s not really an endgame. PvP is enabled, allowing other players to pose a serious threat. However, if you’re on a fairly unpopulated server, the bigger concerns come in the form of zombies. They can be found near any point of interest, whether it’s a farmhouse, a seaside village, or a military compound. They’re not particularly difficult to take down, however, and the simplified melee system means you can win a war with a quick strike with your choice of melee weapon or your fists, followed by stepping back to dodge their counterattack of undead attrition.
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The other major threat comes in the form of giant mechs patrolling military sites, underground bunkers and the hottest spot on the map; the airfield. They shoot on sight, can spot you from quite a distance and no matter what you pack, you’ll be downed in a volley of gunfire. Of course, they defend the areas with the best loot. So if you want to gear up, you need to dodge these robotic beasts. Don’t think about trying to take them down: in the few days since the game launched, only one group has managed to take one down. It required going onto a private server and fiddling with the settings to get her damage down to zero, followed by about 15 of his community members firing at it non-stop. Disabling these godless killing machines is beyond the reach of most players.
While the game does have crafting mechanics, these aren’t quite as central to the experience as you might think. From the start, you should find two rocks on the ground so you can craft a stone knife, and then chop a bush so you can carry an improvised wooden spear. This is where most of the crafting comes in, creating makeshift versions of the tools you don’t already have. You’ll always find better versions of your stuff in buildings and terrain, so don’t spend too much time thinking about what you need to do, even if it seems intimidating. Instead, drag yourself to the nearest point of interest and hope you don’t encounter any mechs.
However, craft is very important when it comes to cooking food. You’ll find a variety of fruits and vegetables in the wild, and inside buildings you might come across chips or a candy bar, but they’re nothing compared to roasting multiple skewers of human flesh. As grim as it may sound, becoming a cannibal is the best way to keep you fed – for every zombie you kill there are multiple appendages that you can chop up, skewer and roast over an open fire . Various animals such as deer, pigs and horses roam the wilderness, but as they flee from you and zombies eagerly run towards you, one is much easier to harvest than the other.
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Characters don’t persist across servers, meaning you can sort of have many different “save files” on the go at the same time. Each character you create has their own “Glory” ranking, which is essentially a point system. The better you do at finding gear, crafting tools, and killing zombies, the more Fame points you’ll earn. It’s a nice system, as Fame can be spent on reviving your character when you die – want next to one Respawn squadmates? It costs you 100 FP. Don’t worry where you restart? You just have to part with 25 FP. If you are fed up with the survival aspect, you can also spend your hard-earned FP participating in deathmatch games. We haven’t seen any that come with rewards for winning, but they offer a great way to get used to weapon mechanics.
When you go into your inventory you’ll see a few tabs at the top, one of which is “Catabolism”. It may seem overwhelming at first, but there’s not much to worry about here. Watch out for “Diseases” under BCU Body Monitor as this will tell you if you need to heal with bandages or pills. On the right side, try to keep all of your nutritional values in the green, but none of that actually matters too much. If your health isn’t failing and you’re eating and drinking regularly, there’s nothing to worry about. It’s possible to minimize your character through a mixed diet, but we haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet.
Could this be the first game that teaches you how to eat properly in the real world? As long as it asks you to grill zombie parts, it’s not conclusive.
Eventually, however, assuming you remain full, your character must urinate and void. Yes, you have to do this manually. Your character will tell you what they need on the left side of the screen and to go to the toilet you need to hold tab, navigate to the toilet icon and then choose what action you want to take. It’s rude and unnecessary for the developers to include something like this, but against my will it was pretty funny to see my prison inmate crouch over a plant and let go.
Early Impressions
SCUM could very well be the next big thing. It has seen immense growth across Twitch and social media channels in the few days since its launch, and with good reason. Despite being early access, the package you get is solid, if a bit bare. This is one to watch.