Miscreated
Entrada Interactive
Although indie game developer Entrada Interactive’s post-apocalyptic, survival game, Miscreated, has been in development for just over 3 years now, I actually didn’t heard about it until 2016. A friend and I, looking for a reprieve from the toxic nature of the Rust community as well as a fill-in for the failed DayZ game, took a chance and purchased it.
Right away we noticed that similar to Rust, you don’t spawn in with your friends. You also didn’t start with a map so the only way of trying to find your buddies is either by recognizing and relaying landmark locations, or finding towns that you’re mutually close to. The graphics were top-notch—in fact that’s always been one of Miscreated strongpoints. Not only are they highly detailed, but the beautifully crafted environments really add to the sense of immersion.
After locating one another, it was fun to explore Miscreated’s huge, pre-rendered map. A few hours in, we realized that the game’s PVE aspect which supposedly pits you against mutants, really didn’t have much to it. In the course of about ten hours, we only came across 4 or 5 baddies, and they were relatively easy to outmaneuver and ditch.
The main enemies seemed to be the other players, who would usually either run away on sight or attack us with whatever weapons they possessed. We did meet a few friendly players but it wasn’t a common occurrence. In this way (besides the few AI mutants) Miscreated resembled Rust as far as its hostile community goes.
Another thing that bugged us was that there wasn’t much in the way of survival. In other words, there was no way to hunt for animals in the wild (although we could see them running around). You also couldn’t do other basic stuff such as build fires to keep warm or cook food, or set traps. In this way, the only “survival” aspect that Miscreated brought to the table was trying to ward off other players.
But I’d have to say that the final proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was the game’s lackluster base building system. Parts of any base you attempted to build were difficult to snap together. Many of the pieces also floated in the air. And to top things off, bases just looked hideous from a visual standpoint.
After reading some favorable Steam reviews, I recently dove back into Miscreated. Much to my pleasure (but not my character’s since he died), the mutants finally form large hordes and are a serious threat. Not long after spawning in I scurried into a random town in search of some loot, and came across a full-on gaggle of about ten or so mutants.
The mutated dogs were the first ones to chase me into nearby abandoned house, since they were the fastest movers of the enemy contingent. I ran up into the second story and killed off the dogs, only to have the rest of the group hear the loud report of my shotgun.
Of course, the rest of the malevolent mashup of mutants ran in and overwhelmed me. But it was great to see that the devs actually listened to their player base about there being too few AI threats and fixed that aspect of the game accordingly.
Floating bases are also a thing of the past now. The bases look much, much better as well. The only thing that is still a slight issue is that each part of any base that you’re building still has issues with snapping onto each other. It can be a little frustrating when you’ve got all your base’s walls up but can’t quite place the roof on it.
The devs have also added new weather events: Short term nuclear winters and radiation dust storms. Although these new weather systems look incredible, they still haven’t actually added their negative properties into Miscreated yet. That’s a good thing in my book though, as it gives players time to get used to their warning signs before they are eventually implemented.
And last but surely not least is a recent developer diary title “State of the Game 2018.” It details all kinds of features that Entrada have in store for the game. These include such things as filling out the map more (about 75% of it is finished at this point), additional types of clothing, farming, temperature management, and much more. This update was very heartening to read, and it’s great to see gaming devs that give a darn about their game.
In all, Miscreated seems to be on the right track. By the time it leaves Early Access sometime in 2018, we could just have the survival horror game that DayZ was supposed to be. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.
SCORE: 77%
Miscreated features outstanding graphics that make its survival horror gameplay truly shine. However, you want to have a pretty beefy gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:
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