Abiotic Factor

Pitched to me initially as Half Life 1 but a survival crafter, it would be Abiotic Factor’s story and world, so distinct in the genre by their existence and quality, that convinced me to take the plunge. A finely crafted experience followed, one remarkable in both how it handles its home genre and how it grows far beyond it. Abiotic Factor’s chief success, where so many in its genre fail, is in successfully giving meaningful structure and context to the survival and the crafting. So successfully, in fact, that it adds not one but two entire other genres into its gameplay blend and manages the resultant balancing act astoundingly well. The game begins with pretty standard survival crafting fair as you scrabble around an unfamiliar complex desperately trying to stay fed and watered while fending off alien horrors with weapons cobbled together from office supplies and eating utensils. As you find your feet and begin branching out, exploration takes the lead, driven by both the need for better resources and sheer curiosity at what cleverly designed and creative environment you’ll find yourself in next. But that exploration inevitably leads to conflict and the game steadily becomes more action packed all the way to rivaling any first-person shooter at the finish. At no point does this transition feel forced. Nor at any point did any of the three genres feel particularly neglected or clash with each other. Things did sour for me a bit in the lategame as the difficulty curve is sustained by disabling or bypassing your hard-earned abilities and equipment. Not to mention the mechanical and thematic flop of a final boss. But none of that list of annoyances made me want to put the game down. One important point to note is that, while the game is very much meant to be a co-op experience, it is entirely possible to play and enjoy solo, as I did. However, the game is not particularly well balanced for solo players. Thankfully the game offers a detailed set of difficulty options that you can tweak to your heart’s content, up to and including entirely disabling many of the survival mechanics. These also do not impact your ability to earn achievements, though some may be rendered unobtainable depending on your settings. As mentioned before, Abiotic Factor was pitched to me as Half Life 1 but a survival crafter. A comparison I found largely only skin-deep. Literally, in the case of its visuals. It borrows much more from another media series entirely, but to say more would spoil the experience. Despite wearing its inspirations on its sleeve, though, Abiotic Factor succeeds in carving out its own unique identity, successfully building upon a derivative foundation with unique ideas. This extends to its writing as well. The broad strokes will be familiar to many, cliché, even. But it’s in the minutiae where things come into their own. Unsurprisingly, the writing is overall much more in the anthology of short stories camp than the grand unified sweeping epic one. In fact the overarching plot I found to be pretty disappointing. Great build-up, but lousy payoff, though its as-of-writing ongoing development gives opportunities for revision and expansion. The survival crafting game for those who dislike survival crafting games. Abiotic Factor is an excellent example of the kind of deeply immersive experience you can only get with the survival crafting genre if only one focuses less on obsessively simulating systems and more on interesting ways to utilize them. And if you really can’t stand the sight of a crafting bench you can make it easy for yourself or foist it upon your coop partners while you go jab the latest menace with a pointy stick.

Dr. Two-Tu reporting. This specimen stimulates both on emotional and gameplay level with incredible atmosphere, gripping story, clever level design, and overall with such an unique and interesting setting. All users are highly advised to engage with it.