Surviving The Aftermath is out in early access today
Banished, but with content
PDXCON, Paradox Interactive's convention in Berlin, just kicked off its announcement show with the news that Surviving The Aftermath, the post-apocalyptic colony manager announced last week, s out in early access today. Despite its name, and the fact it's a survival-based settlement builder, it's not got much in common with last year's Surviving Mars, and is being produced by a different team, Finnish studio Iceflake.
I got to play it for a couple of hours yesterday, and I'd describe it as the colony manager for everyone who got really into the settlement building in Fallout 4. The tone, too, is very latter-day Fallout - while not exactly playing the apocalypse for laughs, it's nowhere near as bleak as Frostpunk, for example. It's got waste-scavenging and recycling mechanics reminiscent of fellow apocalyptic builder Flotsam, and feels a bit like Banished to play - only with more actual content. Some of that content includes insect farms, meteor showers, radiation and a travelling merchant who bears a weird resemblance to Doctor Robotnik.
Most of the game takes place in the classic, top-down view you'd expect from a colony sim, but there's also a hex-based world map where you can send survivors to scavenge, explore and battle with bandits who look a lot like Bane. While I liked the town-building bits, I wasn't so keen on the zoomed-out part of the game. But there'll be more to say about that later, as I'm going to be posting a proper preview of the game this evening.
Update - I didn't get time for this given I was busy at PDXCON, so I think I'll be working on a preview once the first update for the game is live.
Surviving The Aftermath is available now in early access on the Epic Games Store for £15.49. Paradox plan to release the full game in late 2020, on Steam as well.