Stranded: Alien Dawn | Review – A good survival sim on a hostile planet

A simulation game with strong mechanics Survive that caught our attention from the first hours of the game and that we tested more extensively this time in the final version – out of the Early Access phase – with a dedicated code Xbox Series X.

A perfect opportunity to address the feedback of the controls as well Stranded: Alien Dawn for the controller, which we expect to be quietly of decent workmanship, apart from the fact that you need to take some time to get used to it and play in the most natural way possible.

But let’s see how the game fared in the full review.

A new planet to colonize

Stranded: Alien Dawn allows you to impersonate a team of settlers survive on a hostile and unexplored planetfull of dangers and resources that we can use to our ends with incredible ease – provided we set priorities so as not to force the team to an untimely end.

In addition to being able to launch with four survivors after a crash landing that damages our ship beyond repair, we have two other selectable gameplay options.

In particular, it’s possible to choose two other modes, each allowing you to rely on a team of no fewer than six well-equipped starting characters to create a super-advanced base, or a more cohesive team of three settlers, with whom You can join forces to expand in colonizing the planet.

You are not missing additional variables to choose from before entry Stranded: Alien Dawn, like the amount of resources that can be used as supplies once you land on the planet – including food, equipment and building materials – or the nature of the planet. Precisely for the latter case, we have two biomes at the antipodes, a greener environment full of traditional and varied vegetation and a desert that forces us to adapt more to a more difficult and characteristic mix of flora and fauna.

Let’s talk about items that guarantee lots of replay value and which offer a fair change of pace from the very first moments, offering games with a good level of engagement.

Diversity valued for obvious reasons a decent selection of characters among which you can choose to compose the ideal team – all well differentiated, among numerous parameters that indicate unique skills as well as strengths and weaknesses.

Then the (infinite) minutes are spent in the corresponding screen Assemble a team that is as balanced as possible: We will move between characters useful for combat or manual work such as simply gathering resources, to then move on to the experts more experienced in treatments or in technology research, perhaps with an unwavering mental strength and in the Able to stay clearer in situations fraught with stress.

A small sore point in this regard z Stranded: Alien Dawn And the difficulty of keeping the psyche of the various settlers under control. It happens too often, in fact, that the characters are at the mercy of stressful or tiring situations, despite having a good amount of supplies or buildings useful to ease the burden; Moments that, especially when they coincide with some more delicate phases of the game, such as B. clashes with some aliens, risk creating a lot of frustration and ruining hours and hours of careful management of one’s settlement.

Survive one click at a time

As expected, the scenarios of Stranded: Alien Dawn they guarantee variety and a good portion of replayabilityespecially thanks to one process structure which randomly changes the arrangement of resources, flora and fauna with each game, even if the game isn’t particularly brilliant in terms of style.

The gameplay offers numerous possibilities and as the hours go by you will become familiar with the management-survival dynamics similar to what you have experienced in the series turning circle the possibilities for planning the various constructions increase dramatically.

It starts with examining the environment and carefully targeting primary needs of the various survivors: a roof to protect you from the weather, a bed to rest in and an area to store resources where you can store food and materials of all kinds.

Paradoxically, regardless of the environment chosen, the early stages of the games are our absolute favourites: here we cannot hesitate to commend the team’s broadcasting efforts a strong sense of responsibility towards the playerwilling to ensure his team survives and thrives in the long run.

It is a pity that with the continuation of the adventure and the consequent expansion of his settlement with all the amenities due to the introduction of electricity, There is little incentive to explore the lavish portion of the map that has remained untouched.

A few random occurrences, like meeting newly hired survivors in their ranks, may partially defuse what has just been written, but these are events that tend to be more palliative in the long run. In Stranded: Alien Dawn We’ll spend most of our time, willy-nilly, focusing on what’s happening in our camp, or at most its defense, and worrying less and less about sending colonists to analyze resources on the edge of the map .

As for me Commands with the controller (You can buy some something like that available on Amazon), we would like to point out the presence of a mapping made ad hoc for the occasion and easily accessible, which uses the combination of triggers and buttons to select buildings or to manage the collection of resources directly by using clicking on it, opening menus and windows that do not burden the global view on the screen.

However, the movement of the camera and the pointer with the analogues remains somewhat cumbersome compared to using the classic mouseas well as the management during the clashes that force us to give orders to our settlers in a way that is a little too unnatural, emphasizing the chaos that was already evident in those moments during the testing of the PC version.

In short, if the game is still fun on consoles, it shows pretty clearly that it was developed with the PC and mouse in mind.