As the planet lies in shambles after the meteor devastated the earth, leaving a mist known as Stasis. Many were left out on their own, factions were formed, creatures rose and lives were lost, but the fight for survival has just begun. Survive The Fall is an RPG post-apocalyptic survival game where you must set out to explore your surroundings, search for loot and bring it all back to craft what was once my home base of operations.
The Way To Play
I began my journey after learning that our base of operations, which now lies in disarray after a group of bandits known as The Flame, rushed through, burning everything to the ground. It’s the beginning of a tutorial done right. Many games will present a basic, uninspiring tutorial that, more often than not, explains the games’ features all at once without leading the player into learning the game, based on the events of what’s just taken place among the story. Our base of operations being ransacked by The Flame serves as a purpose to learn the fundamentals of base building. A feature I adored.
Survive the Fall mixes many genres into one. Stealth, base building (almost similar to a city builder), survival game with looting, crafting and a tech tree that will have you exploring in search for notes and other means to gain research points that will allow you to spend those knowledge points on expanding and rebuilding your base of operations through the tech tree. A gameplay loop that had me exploring, looting, crafting and building for hours, and loving every minute. It’s truly a gameplay hook that I love and Angry Bull Studio have created very well. Combining all of these gameplay loops with a mix of stealth and sneaking up on enemies to eliminate them was satisfying, but somewhat a little too easy due to the naive nature of the NPC’s.
Options, Options, Options.
I was tasked with retrieving a survivor who was taken from our camp. Upon finding them locked away in a building, I was given a choice as to how I wanted to enter the building, providing I had the proper equipment. If I had crafted a rope, I could have easily climbed in unnoticed. Steal the key to walk right in the front door, or bash my way in with the use of a crowbar. This formed opportunities that had me often trying my best to be better prepared for future outings, as I was ill-equipped for this rescue. Do I want to go gather resources for HQ? Or setout on my mission at hand would have me rethinking my gear loadout.
Each return back to HQ would allow some time to prepare and fix up broken-down buildings, prepare food, build/repair gear, learn new skills through researching past notes found in my journey before the day ends, and I set out for another day in the wild for my next adventure with my chosen crew.
My time spent with Survive the Fall was a mix of playing on my PC and my Steam Deck. I was thrilled to see how well the game ran on the Steam Deck. Which also leads me to believe that the game will likely come to console as I not only used my Steam Deck to play, but when on my PC, I was using a controller as well. The controls were smooth, handled well and has me excited to jump into the console version of the game IF it comes to Xbox or PlayStation, as there are no current plans mentioned for a console release at the time of my review.
Meat On These Bones
There is certainly some meat left on the bones of our survivors in Survive the Fall. With lots to explore, tasks to do back at HQ, factions to worry about when crossing paths, are they friend or foe? I truly enjoyed my time with the game. Though the NPC’s were naive most times, as I would “hide” a body in brush in plain sight without detection of this newly found pile of rumble. I also questioned the need for the infected creatures, though, given the form of the “Stasis”, it does tie into the story. The gameplay loop had me hooked from the beginning of the game. Often, times I would be able to put on a podcast and venture out for my needed supplies to rebuild or, when it came to a story moment, focus on the story at hand.
If you are a fan of adventuring out into the unknown with exploration and searching for loot, crafting gear and building ala city builder-like gameplay with RPG elements. Survive the Fall is a must-play for you!
