How To Survive Preview

Washing up, unconscious, on the shore? Check. Trawling through a mysterious island desperately trying to find food, water and shelter? Dead bodies come to life, moaning and groaning towards you? Check. How To Survive from EKO Software looks like a great survival game, even despite the zombie theme.

You can play as three survivors, each with their own skills tree. One of the guys is a great shot, which would be handy if he’d washed up on the beach with a gun. He hasn’t, so you’d better start searching. The woman is a bit of a survivalist, I believe, good with a bow and hunting at night. The other guy… well, I forgot to write down any of their names and what this guy does. He’s probably a god with melee weapons or medicine or something.

From what I played in 20 minutes, it seems like the biggest advantages lie in what you can fashion from bits you find lying around on the island, or can wangle out of other people by doing their fetch quests.

Your first handy weapon will probably be the wooden stick, since a bunch of crates have shattered all over the beach. Hit zombies with it. Watch their heads fly off. Run away and hope to find a knife or stone and a rope to convert it into an axe. Find the materials to fashion bows and arrows and suddenly you’re no longer running for your life. You’re standing your ground and tactically aiming for the big dumb zombie in the middle because you know he’ll explode and probably take the others with him.

That said, I could really do with the “dash forwards” button on the controller NOT being next to the trigger though. The number of times I’ve aimed an arrow towards a distant group of zombies only to go dashing right into the middle of them… Aaargh!

As for wangling, I met an old man next to a boat. He told me that we could escape the island, but first I had to get the jerry can of petrol from our injured colleague. Unfortunately for poor jerry can guy, there was only space on the boat for two people and I had the advantage of being able to walk.

Of course, his fate could be yours. You need to eat on a regular basis or your health will drop. Let it go far enough and you’ll be the one shuffling around slowly, easy prey for attackers. You can still dash a bit, but that’s not going to get you very far. As you learn more about your environment through finding survival manuals about the place, you’ll discover that some plants mixed with water become lemonade. You’ll learn how to light a campfire and from there, you can cook other plants for a nutritious meal.

Thanks to the multiple uses of most items, you’ll always be focused on survival. Save the cloth for a weapon later or use it now to make a powerful health poultice? At night, new zombies appear. You can keep them at bay with a light, but now maybe you’re better off using the cloth on a stick as a makeshift torch. Kill enough zombies and you’ll level up, learning new skills and abilities to help you make better use of your discoveries.

How To Survive is more complex than it first looks. I really enjoyed scavenging for items, hunting animals for food and skins, and generally feeling like a badass survivor. There are four islands to explore, with an online co-op mode available and controller support on Steam.

How To Survive will be released on XBLA, PSN and PC in autumn.

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