The growing popularity of the early access concept has quite expectedly saw more and more developers opt for alpha funding, and as such there are now a number of games in varying states of completion readily available to the consumer. This flags up an obvious potential problem: if players are parting with their hard earned cash, they are well within their rights to expect some sort of immediate return; one which they may never receive, even considering the long road ahead. Games like Prison Architect, Project Zomboid, and Sir, You Are Being Hunted appear to have struck a healthy balance between progression and product - these games more beta-like in presentation than alpha. But there are now some games which really could have benefited from a little longer in the development oven, before being released into the world. Unclaimed World is for me one of those games.
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| The menu system is straightforward, yet not overly simple |
That is not to say that Refactored’s inter-stellar colonisation sort of top-down, but more so slanted perspective, survival/strategy/exploration sim lacks potential, far from it, it’s just a bit lacking in almost all other areas at this early stage. I have little doubt that as this game progresses further into its early access odyssey, it’ll treat us to a lot more than what’s on offer just now - all the tools are there - but the problem is that what is on offer at the minute isn’t all that much. This in turn presents an obvious dichotomy for any prospective player: should they buy now, help out the devs, and enjoy the game as is at a reduced rate as it evolves? Or would it make more sense hanging fire for the time being, paying a little more later on, but then enjoying a more accomplished product? I don’t know the answer to this question, for it is one that every player interested in early access games has to decide on their own. What I can do though, is share my experience with Unclaimed World in its current state.
In the not so distant future, scientists from Earth have spotted animal life on another planet outside of the Solar System. Plans to initiate an exploration mission are put in place, but unrealistic costs result in the programme’s termination. Fifty years later, an asteroid crashes into the Atlantic, killing 500 million people. Immediately, the space voyage plans are brought back to the table and a mission to colonise the foreign world, in order to help preserve the human race, are put in motion. Hundreds of years pass after the crew are put into space-hibernation, and complications on arrival result in a crash landing scattering the troop across the new planet’s continents. Assuming control of Ward Conlan, Joaquin Lehner, Augustine Yeboah, and Ilya Khan, the player must aid the newfound team on the ground as they fight for survival in the wait to be rescued.
For the time being, Unclaimed World only comprises of ‘Episode One: The Lost Explorers’, which is essentially a survival mission wherein the player must keep the team alive before being salvaged (around the 50 minute mark). The first thing that struck me whilst getting to grips with Unclaimed World was how streamlined the menu system is. I’m by no means an expert, but I’ve sampled enough strategy games over the years to appreciate the importance of a coherent and easily manageable UI. Too many of the games within this genre require a very thorough reading (and often re-reading) of screeds and screeds of instructions, in order to learn the basics. Yet Unclaimed Worlds has a simple and very intuitive step-by-step on-screen tutorial to compliment its genre-standard pop-up menus, which include ‘Building‘ - a checklist of available things to construct, ‘Inventory’ - an itemised list of the team’s goodies, and ‘Tasks‘ - where the player can set the urgency of each duty’s execution.
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| Send team members out to pasture, but watch out for Twinklers! |
By clicking and dragging the left mouse button, the player can pull upon a grid which identifies the explorable areas across the map. Doing so prompts a submenu of activities; the most important during this mission being both ‘Gather’ - which allows the team to scour the designated area for resources, and ‘Forage’ - which uncovers new items to be scavenged. Other markers include: ‘Stockpile’ - which creates an area to house gathered loot; ‘Scout’ - used to uncover uncharted territory (identified by peripheral shadows); and ‘Hunt’ - which sends the team out for food. As opposed to setting tasks individually, it’s up to the player to decide each order of business however, once put in motion, the team will then act on their own accord in seeing each task through to completion - sometimes dividing up labour, other times working together. This process happens at random.
What starts out simple - the game’s first ‘main objective’ is gathering firewood and rocks to create a campfire - becomes rather complicated, particularly when the first horde of Twinklers - a vicious Half Life headcrab-like species which ain’t too happy with the team’s unannounced arrival - descends on the camp, as agency can feel completed removed from the player. It is during these situations where Unclaimed World really needs at least some degree of micromanagement and, as such, although Episode One is primarily about survival, much of it is about running down the clock as you’ve no real bearing on the outcome of fights, or hunts, or who gets to eat when you eventually find the means to cook food.
Another example of adverse player isolation came when I decided to erect a shelter for the team just as it was getting dark. Due to an inadequate gathering session during the previous afternoon, I had only the meager resources to build a flimsy two-person dwelling. Suddenly, without notice three of my guys squeezed in for a kip, leaving the one remaining member to fend off a midnight Twinkler ambush. In their defense, the team immediately bailed out of the tent to aid their faltering comrade but, as I’d specifically designed a two-person shelter, why did three people fit in at all? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve squeezed far more into a two-person tent at T in the Park, but that’s been at my friends’ and my own discretion - this wasn’t. This may well be a daft example, but it perfectly outlines the distinct lack of player autonomy in the game, nonetheless.
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| Gather what you can before nightfall |
Put bluntly, Unclaimed World at this stage feels, well, a bit unfinished. And that’s mainly because it is; that’s the deal with early access games. Where you stand with this idea will ultimately determine where you stand with this game in its current form. At the minute, it lacks options (there isn’t even a save option in the current build), yet even within the 50-minute time frame, I was still convinced of the game’s potential. It looks great, and a combination of real time text, coupled with mission logs break up the sometimes mundane, time-consuming aspects of survival-strategy sims and, although there actually isn’t all that much to do in Episode One, features such as ‘Production Chains’, where the player can begin to study items and data with long-term progress in mind, begin to illustrate how Unclaimed World could completely open itself up a little down the line.
As soon as Unclaimed World begins to expand, for example once the proposed sandbox mode is installed, then this game will definitely be worth keeping an eye on. Have other games handled early access better? Yes. Could all of this so far have been showcased within a demo? Probably. I may lament the death of the old fashioned demo, but in spite of that fact, I’m still looking forward to tracking Unclaimed World’s journey through Steam, Planet Earth and beyond.
Most Anticipated Feature/Element: Seeing more!
