Icarus - Anyone playing it?
Discussion
Recent release, from Dean Hall of DayZ fame / notoriety.
https://surviveicarus.com/
Session based PVE survival, to try and maintain the 'fun' bit of survival games whereby you're starting out with nothing and scraping to survive, but also give some progression etc.
Sounds like it's quite buggy at this early stage, but I'm tempted to give it a go, mostly as I keep going back to DayZ every now and then (on PS4, so the interface is like pulling teeth out and then chewing on them) despite the jank, so how bad can Icarus be right...?
https://surviveicarus.com/
Session based PVE survival, to try and maintain the 'fun' bit of survival games whereby you're starting out with nothing and scraping to survive, but also give some progression etc.
Sounds like it's quite buggy at this early stage, but I'm tempted to give it a go, mostly as I keep going back to DayZ every now and then (on PS4, so the interface is like pulling teeth out and then chewing on them) despite the jank, so how bad can Icarus be right...?
Have given it a bit of a go for a few hours, played about in the opening 'mission' that's pretty relaxed.
Doesn't feel like DayZ, which is good and bad, feels much more relaxed and easier, feels a bit like Subsistence or that sort of thing so far, but I'm enjoying it.
Girlfriend will be picking it up and playing along too so think we'll likely end up sinking a fair bit of time into it, the amount of craftable stuff looks pretty significant.
No significant bugs or anything really so far, few animals stuck on rocks etc but nothing game breaking.
Doesn't feel like DayZ, which is good and bad, feels much more relaxed and easier, feels a bit like Subsistence or that sort of thing so far, but I'm enjoying it.
Girlfriend will be picking it up and playing along too so think we'll likely end up sinking a fair bit of time into it, the amount of craftable stuff looks pretty significant.
No significant bugs or anything really so far, few animals stuck on rocks etc but nothing game breaking.
I don't like the design choice fact that each mission you do, you have to go through silly go to space thing only to be sent back to an alien planet (that looks just like Earth, full of rabbits and deer?) and have to start building and crafting all over again... Nope, that gameplay loop sounds horrible.
Why is there no persistent creation between missions? No variety in planets, nature, atmosphere etc?
Why is there no persistent creation between missions? No variety in planets, nature, atmosphere etc?
Edited by James-gbg1e on Monday 27th December 21:09
James-gbg1e said:
I don't like the design choice fact that each mission you do, you have to go through silly go to space thing only to be sent back to an alien planet (that looks just like Earth, full of rabbits and deer?) and have to start building and crafting all over again... Nope, that gameplay loop sounds horrible.
Why is there no persistent creation between missions? No variety in planets, nature, atmosphere etc?
The fact it's like Earth is meant to be because it was an attempt at terraformimg a planet to create an earth-like environment, allegedly. Later in the game the environments / critters become more alien and naturally it gives them the justification to basically add whatever environment they want.Why is there no persistent creation between missions? No variety in planets, nature, atmosphere etc?
Edited by James-gbg1e on Monday 27th December 21:09
The lack of persistence is a deliberate choice and largely the differentiator for the game. I don't know how much time you've spent in survival games, but arguably the initial survival / building stage is the most fun, once you've built a 5 bed mansion with games room, pool, dining hall and home gym, the 'survival' element is somewhat lost.
That's the argument / justification anyway.
By effectively limiting the world to a week in real time, you get some persistence to build and play about to support the mission, but then you have to leave and go to another area for the next mission.
Girlfriend and I played about 6 hours of it yesterday, and the in mission gameplay style actually suits it, as basically you build a smallish temporary shelter, hunt a bit and so on and get preoared, then you move on towards a mission goal, perhaps build another little base near the next objective etc and so on.
It's a different take on the survival idea obviously, and far less say gritty realistic than DayZ, but it at least feels much more like a game as opposed to brutal punishment (we still love DayZ) and at least for now means there's always stuff to do.
We'll give it a go for a while anyway, enjoying it so far, definitely better with 2+ people to give a bit of a chance to avoid the respawn penalties as they are a ballache.
So we've both played getting on for ~100 hours together so a bit better informed.
There's quite a bit of walking to do sometimes, but it's fair enough, you can either spend longer gearing yourself up to make the trip easier or just cheese it and make do as you go.
None of the missions have taken even remotely close to the real world time limit, if you just 'get on with it' as opposed to spending ages gearing up, most of the missions so far have been between 2 - 6 hours of actual play time.
The lack of persistence between missions hasn't been an issue. You're often on different parts of the map so the wooden shack you built 8 miles away wouldn't have much relevance, and it keeps each mission about your skill at surviving and making do, as opposed to just going back to the solar powered military compound you built, equipping yourself with hunting rifle and body armour and enjoying a bottle wine and a thai curry before nipping over to complete the mission's goals.
Equally, some of the missions have a 30 day timer, so if you want to spend weeks building an enormous base, you can. I think realistically anything you'd built you'd be done with / bored of after 4 weeks anyway, survival games need challenge to keep you engaged.
Or there's the outpost mode which is just persistent world with no predators, so build all the ski resorts you want
The multiplayer element of it is nicely done, and the requirement to get back to your ship after a mission is complete is actually a reasonable way of maintaining a little bit of peril even after you're done with the goals and are as tooled up as you need to be, as you don't want to randomly get mauled to death by a polar bear and lose whatever items you'd brought down with you. It's frustrating when it happens and you have to decide whether to trek back to where you died pick up the stuff, but I think on balance the game is better for it.
The fact you get no more 'talent points' after level 40 is a bit of a shame, as now really there is no respawn penalty beyond having to go get your stuff, the XP is irrelevant now, but the intention was clearly to make people have multiple characters with distinctly tailored 'builds' that specialised them on certain areas to better complete missions.
Bug wise, nothing much has really gone wrong, again animals occasionally getting stuck on stuff, the hit box is a bit ridiculous (in terms of it seems once a predator has initiated their 'attack', even if you've jumped out of the way / behind them etc. it'll still hit you) and the graphics performance is a little unoptimised but meh, works well enough, I have a few generations old graphics card so am just running it at 1080p with everything on epic and getting perfectly decent framerate.
There have been weekly updates since release, mostly adding new missions and bug fixes. It's realistically at a very early stage in terms of content despite being 'full release', most things are still earth like but obviously the scope is there to just extend the game over time and it'll be interesting how the feel of the game is changed over time.
In fairness, we've played over 100 hours each and it was about £25, so has been good value already even if we never played it again.
There's quite a bit of walking to do sometimes, but it's fair enough, you can either spend longer gearing yourself up to make the trip easier or just cheese it and make do as you go.
None of the missions have taken even remotely close to the real world time limit, if you just 'get on with it' as opposed to spending ages gearing up, most of the missions so far have been between 2 - 6 hours of actual play time.
The lack of persistence between missions hasn't been an issue. You're often on different parts of the map so the wooden shack you built 8 miles away wouldn't have much relevance, and it keeps each mission about your skill at surviving and making do, as opposed to just going back to the solar powered military compound you built, equipping yourself with hunting rifle and body armour and enjoying a bottle wine and a thai curry before nipping over to complete the mission's goals.
Equally, some of the missions have a 30 day timer, so if you want to spend weeks building an enormous base, you can. I think realistically anything you'd built you'd be done with / bored of after 4 weeks anyway, survival games need challenge to keep you engaged.
Or there's the outpost mode which is just persistent world with no predators, so build all the ski resorts you want
The multiplayer element of it is nicely done, and the requirement to get back to your ship after a mission is complete is actually a reasonable way of maintaining a little bit of peril even after you're done with the goals and are as tooled up as you need to be, as you don't want to randomly get mauled to death by a polar bear and lose whatever items you'd brought down with you. It's frustrating when it happens and you have to decide whether to trek back to where you died pick up the stuff, but I think on balance the game is better for it.
The fact you get no more 'talent points' after level 40 is a bit of a shame, as now really there is no respawn penalty beyond having to go get your stuff, the XP is irrelevant now, but the intention was clearly to make people have multiple characters with distinctly tailored 'builds' that specialised them on certain areas to better complete missions.
Bug wise, nothing much has really gone wrong, again animals occasionally getting stuck on stuff, the hit box is a bit ridiculous (in terms of it seems once a predator has initiated their 'attack', even if you've jumped out of the way / behind them etc. it'll still hit you) and the graphics performance is a little unoptimised but meh, works well enough, I have a few generations old graphics card so am just running it at 1080p with everything on epic and getting perfectly decent framerate.
There have been weekly updates since release, mostly adding new missions and bug fixes. It's realistically at a very early stage in terms of content despite being 'full release', most things are still earth like but obviously the scope is there to just extend the game over time and it'll be interesting how the feel of the game is changed over time.
In fairness, we've played over 100 hours each and it was about £25, so has been good value already even if we never played it again.
So we ended up playing about 150 hours or so, got to a mission with a giant boss which we'd boldly (stupidly) shot straight over to without gearing up to 'see how bad it was' and had to flee.
This then frustratingly meant when you returned to the boss location, it didn't respawn, so the mission had to be abandoned, and we just didn't return to it after that, sort of broke the spell of playing the game and we hadn't been back to it since January!
Fired it up again last night as noticed there have naturally been an enormous amount of updates (including a persistent open world mode and another 8kmx 8km map) and I think we'll probably get back in to it now, it's definitely improved a lot.
Yes it's still Earth-esque environments and creatures (mostly) but it's enjoyable. We're currently dabbling in the open world mode to get a feel for the game again and enjoy a bit of building / exploration, there have been an awful lot of fixes and improvements and features added / fleshed out, and the updates still come weekly and seem consistently decent in their content.
Anybody still playing?
This then frustratingly meant when you returned to the boss location, it didn't respawn, so the mission had to be abandoned, and we just didn't return to it after that, sort of broke the spell of playing the game and we hadn't been back to it since January!
Fired it up again last night as noticed there have naturally been an enormous amount of updates (including a persistent open world mode and another 8kmx 8km map) and I think we'll probably get back in to it now, it's definitely improved a lot.
Yes it's still Earth-esque environments and creatures (mostly) but it's enjoyable. We're currently dabbling in the open world mode to get a feel for the game again and enjoy a bit of building / exploration, there have been an awful lot of fixes and improvements and features added / fleshed out, and the updates still come weekly and seem consistently decent in their content.
Anybody still playing?
krisdelta said:
Well it looks like I need to play this game, thank you for the write-ups 
The game you'll be playing now is a lot better in many ways than the one we were playing at the start of the year, you've stumbled across a good time to take a look!From the updates on Steam the development team seem to be being very open and engaged with their community, but with some sensible guidance / direction, so it could well be a very enjoyable thing to get in to.
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