CryoFall Preview – Survive the Test of Time

The survival game genre has grown like crazy over the past 10 years or so. Pretty much, anyone can find a survival game that’s best for them, whether it be one with dinosaurs (Ark: Survival Evolved), one with neat art direction (Don’t Starve Together), and even one that has Conan the Barbarian (Conan Exiles). For a new survival game to truly stand out, it needs to have something special — something that’s never been done before — and that’s what developer AtomicTorch Studio and publisher Daedalic Entertainment are hoping to achieve with the survival RPG CryoFall.

CryoFall is a sci-fi inspired multiplayer game set in the distant future that drops players into the shoes of a spaceship crash survivor. You’re not the only survivor, however, as you meet plenty of other survivors along the way. Whether solo or with a group, the objective is to discover what the world exactly is around you, all the while, making sure to be mindful of deadly hazards.

What’s particularly interesting about CryoFall is that servers are capable of supporting up to 200 player simultaneously, which is quite impressive since the game is an indie game. From my time with the game, I actually didn’t run into any framerate issues and everything ran smoothly, even when there were a large number of players in a server. However, I haven’t yet gone into a server with 200 players, though.

Rather than exploring a 3D world, CryoFall instead has a 2D open-world to explore. It’s in this world that players can either work together to build their own epic cities, foster positive economies, or… simply just kill each other and steal each other’s goods. Most of the time, other players were actually supportive and willing to help me out. On the flip side, there were, of course, some moments when a few players would be a bit barbaric by attacking other players, like me.

In a nutshell, CryoFall’s survival gameplay elements are similar to that of any other survival game out there. Basically, it boils down to scavenging, crafting, and at times, engaging in combat. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it would’ve been more interesting if something else was thrown in to make CryoFall a more unique survival game. The skill system, however, is impressive and actually kind of reminds me of the skill system in RuneScape since it’s tied with completing certain tasks in the game.

What truly stands out, though, is that there are multiple stages of technological progress, so to speak — like at first, you can only manage to build very primitive, bare-bones objects, but then, later on, as you gain experience, you can then make more technologically advanced objects. In addition, there are various environments that actually do affect the player. For instance, going into a wasteland area that has poisonous or harmful air quality, will cause a negative affliction to occur with your character. Players can also become make their own maps thanks to CyroFall’s map editor, which is really in-depth and intuitive, and also enjoy a wide array of mod capabilities.

For an Early Access title, CryoFall is one pretty beefy game. However, there are a few features that I have an issue with. For one, there’s only a male character model. I think it’d be great if there was also a female character model as well. With that said, there are plenty of in-game character customization options to choose from like different headgear, body armor, and more.

The other feature that might lead to some issues for new players, and it’s kind of strange that it’s even an issue, is that there aren’t really any restrictions when it comes to building or killing. So, players that have been playing for a long time will be able to claim a huge chunk of land, but then new players might end up getting no space at all to build and will end up dead. With that said, I’m worried that CryoFall is going to end up being a “veterans only” experience rather than a game for everyone — only time will tell.

For those looking for a new survival game to sink time into, CryoFall might be worth exploring. While its core gameplay is nothing new, CryoFall’s impressive server capabilities and world-building make it fairly unique.

CryoFall is now available on PC via Steam Early Access.