At a recent 505 games press event, in a small pub round the corner from the HMV forum in Kentish Town, I got the chance to play Eko Software ‘s upcoming survival horror game – How to Survive.
When you hear the term survival horror most people instantly think about the likes of Resident Evil and Dead Space, in which the survival aspect generally only extends to not getting killed by whatever nasty bastard is hiding around the next corner.
This is where How to Survive manges to instantly distinguish itself from every other survival horror game going, as it’s best described as a mix of Dead Island and Konami’s little known survival sim – Lost in Blue.
Stranded on an island after the boat you were travelling in has capsized, your character must find a way to survive not only against the elements but also the hordes of zombies that inhabit the island.
To do so you need to find resources in order to keep yourself fed and watered as well as create weapons to fend off the undead brain munchers. Luckily for you, a previous inhabitant has left a handy guide behind that teaches you ‘How to Survive’ on this rather inhospitable tropical paradise,the only problem is that a lot of the pages are missing, So on order to improve your chances of survival you’re going to have to go on a paper chase in order to learn new skills and weapon combinations found within the book.
Although this sounds like a massive pain in the arse, within the game itself this works fairly organically and is mostly used as a mechanism for slowly introducing new gameplay elements. Starting with the basics such as how to poke a zombie with a pointed stick, then how to turn that stick into a torch or rudimentary axe. How to stay hydrated, cook food and how to survive in the dark.
Each new chapter of the book is accompanied by a new ‘Kovaks Rules’ video, which explains each concept and what you need to do. I couldn’t help but chuckle every time one came on as they were all pretty damn funny.
As well as hunting for new materials and guide pages, you’ll spend most of your time helping out other survivors, by finding things for them, killing zombies or checking on their friends and loved ones. Most of the introduction was spent finding the parts in order to fix a dinghy in order to escape to the next part of the archipeligo you’re trapped on. The mission structure felt a lot like dead island in its execution you’ll stumble across people in your travels, help them out, crack a few heads, be gifted some xp and something useful for your troubles and move on.
Also just like Dead Island, every zombie you kill will gift you with some xp to put towards learning new skills in one of three paths which either help you create better weapons or better gear for your day-to-day needs.
Outside of the main campaign there were also several challenges to complete, which included simple missions like getting to a helicopter without dying, to slightly more complex missions, such as assembling and maintaining a chainsaw whilst sawing up hordes of zombies, sounds easy but keeping that thing topped up with 2 stroke whilst, hundreds of hungry mutants try to paw you to death before chomping on your brainmeats is no small feat, to the completely ridiculous kill all of these Emu with a baseball bat.
With its odd mix of influences, dark sense of humour, weirdly addicting gameplay and unique hook, How to Survive is shaping up to be potentially be another hit for 505 games.
How to Survive is out now on Xbox 360 and PC with the PS3 and WiiU versions coming before the year is out.
Be sure to check back next week for our full review.
