Surviving the Aftermath is available on Xbox One and PC and was published by Paradox Interactive and developed by Iceflake Studios.
Surviving the Aftermath is a management simulator that takes place just after the main apocalyptic event and requires you to rebuild a community from scraps of leftover salvage. At first, I didn’t fully get stuck into it, I built the basic living quarters, then learnt how to gather food and other resources like wood, plastic, metal to build other resourceful buildings and storage and then survivors would come and trade or request to join my community. In the early access state it runs smoothly, it knows what it’s doing, the updates are frequent which makes it really quite a rarity having a game that runs as-well as a full release. After learning everything about the systems with the basic tutorial pop-ups I started enjoying it more as I went ahead and learnt about the game. Apocalyptic events started happening, it got tense, exciting and I just wanted to keep pushing my community and sending NPC’s out in the world hunting supplies. The excitement started increasing as I carried on, random events would pop up and you’d have to figure out the best options to take or weigh up the cause and effect. Some of the options you knew there was no good outcome and that’s the whole point of the game, it’s the end of the world, things are bad, not everything is jolly with good results, often you’ll lose things and people and it’s hard but you must carry on.
The game-play is pretty similar to most management sims out there, it’s simple, easy to pick up and you know what you’re doing. I like that, there’s nothing more annoying like a game with an overly complicated menu and a 3-hour tutorial and something that requires way to much time for people who don’t have the time to game for hours on end. Surviving the Aftermath feels like a game you can pick up for a bit, do what you have to do, save and quit, come back later. The simplicity of it is refreshing and the tasks that you have to do are fun rather than a chore. It’s really interesting to see each individual NPC work together and come to you with requests, I like that little detail. Graphically the game runs so smoothly and as said before, for an early access game to be running this well and look this good I think Iceflake Studio have done a stand-up job. They really developed quite an epic apocalyptic experience that looks and feels like it truly would in reality. The soundtrack also gets bonus points as each radio station has different genre’s of music so it can fit the way you want to play rather than being forced to listen to just the one.
Verdict
Surviving the Aftermath at first I didn’t get into it but as time went on and I stuck with it it became such a fantastic title that I see myself coming back to in the future. It feels quite simple but that is truly a good thing, it means you can enjoy more of it’s systems without panicking all the time… Well unless a catastrophe starts then by all means panic. I’d say to anyone who likes apocalyptic survival or management sims that this is one you should get, the constant updates add to the title and I feel like they’re dedicated developers and the love for it shows.
nerdybirdgames.com 