BY LUIGGI CAVANNA
Stranded Deep is an open-world survival game with crafting
elements where your main goal is to survive while traveling & exploring
different islands scattered around the map. Stranded Deep has been in early
access on Steam for a while now but recently the game has been released on Xbox
One and PS4. The version that I played for the purpose of this review is the
PS4 one. This is a supplementary review, if you want to see my first
impressions of the game right after I was done playing it, go check the video
down below.
Watch My Review!
Stranded Deep is your typical first-person survival game
where you have to find food, craft items & avoid dangerous critters. The
gimmick of the game is that you have to do all that in multiple islands that
you find all over the ocean while traveling in your trusty raft.
Before you start your game you have to make a few decisions,
like choosing your difficulty, gender, and even turn on permadeath if you want,
so when you die the game will delete your save file, PEACHY!
You can also choose how
angry you want your snakes.
After you have made all of your decisions the story can
start! This is where the game chooses my favorite type of storytelling, it shows, it doesn’t tell. You find yourself sitting in a private plane, you have full control
of your camera but you can’t move. Looking outside the window you see that a
terrible storm is brewing, and then BOOM! There’s a hole on your plane and next
thing you know your plane is sinking in the ocean. This is where you take
control of your character and you receive your first mission, leave the plane!
Once you reach the surface you find yourself floating on a
raft near an island, that I personally call “TUTORIAL ISLAND”, and this is
where the game actually begins. You're given a mission to pick up some rocks,
and onward you go into a world of crafting and drinking coconut juice so you
don’t die of dehydration!
Don’t drink too much of
it… I’ll let you know why in a bit.
Let’s talk about the gameplay shall we? Crafting is
tremendously important in the game, and the first few missions are given to you
before you have complete freedom is to craft a series of important items that
you’ll need in your quest for survival. Your character has a watch that you can
check any time to view important information like, if you need to eat or drink,
or view your status, for example, if you’re poisoned or if you have diarrhea.
Oh! Look at the time.
If you are a fan of this genre of games, there’s fun to be
had with this title, but there are a few things that we need to discuss before
you go purchasing “Stranded Deep”. Personally I find the menus a bit
cumbersome. That is a problem mainly for how often you have to deal with them
since crafting is so important in this game. There are some shortcuts and ways
to optimize your experience but the game doesn’t do much explaining. I mean,
Stranded Deep does give you some explanation but it could do it a bit better.
Most of the ways to make my experience better were found
online while I was looking for a way to cure poisoning (oh I need to talk about
this!). There is a beginner's trap in the game that can ruin your playthrough
early on, and that is getting poisoned. You see, there are many ways to get poisoned
in the game, from getting bitten by a snake to just stepping in the wrong
place. The problem is that you have to craft the antidote, how is that a
problem? Well my friend in this game crafting has levels, the more you craft
the higher your level becomes. The antidote is obtained at crafting level 3!
You wouldn’t even know you can make an antidote since the thing is grey out
until you reach the level required! I went online to find a way to cure myself
just to find out that it will be faster to start over again.
I had to step on the
purple spiky thing…. FOR SCIENCE!
I mention finding stuff online right? Well, I was doing that
because I feel like the tutorial could do a better job explaining things to
you. There are tips you can read on loading screens but those are random and for
goodness sake doesn’t matter how long your loading screen is, it shouldn’t be
the only way to find those tips! Speaking of loading (masterful segue right
there) if you are going to play this on the PS4 prepare for quite a bit of
loading time, in fact, there is a massive loading screen just to get to the
main menu.
There are also some problems with items you gather from
nature that sometimes falls inside rocks where you can’t get them, EVER. It doesn’t matter how hard you try and there are some graphical hiccups when you are at
sea in a storm. You’ll sometimes see fish just swimming in mid-air. All of
these are minor problems that can be fixed later, after all, this game is in
early access. That being said, this game was also released on PS4 and Xbox one
while still being in early access on steam (I’m literally reviewing the PS4
version). For what I gather on the steam forums, some people are not happy with
this and it is understandable.
No fish! You’re supposed
to be swimming IN the water.
All and all, the game is still fun and it has some promise
for the future, but whether it was ready to be released on consoles is a
completely different matter. The game is a good time killer, especially now
with the state of the world where we have to stay at home, but it has been in
early access for five years on steam (I believe so). I would do my research
first before jumping to the opportunity of purchasing this game if I were
you….. Or wait for a sale.
Very well, my friends, those were my experiences with
“Stranded Deep”, but now I wanna hear from you! Have you played Stranded Deep?
Did you enjoy it? What was the first thing that killed you? Let us know. Now I
return to the deepest darkest corners of my dwelling. Good-bye for now my friends.
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