Dig or Die Preview

Your first thought upon playing Dig or Die will be that it’s aTerraria or Starbound clone. The game, developed by Gaddy Games, puts the player in the shoes of a shipwrecked space-farer. Aside from that and the visual resemblance, this is where the similarities end. The planet your plucky character has landed on is an exceptionally hostile one, and will require every ounce of your hunter-gatherer instincts to survive.

This fact is not so apparent at the start of the game, however. Much of the first few hours in Dig or Die I spent wandering aimlessly around exploring the planet. The game is rendered in the same style as the aforementioned titles with a world that is made up of small blocks that form landmasses, terrain and features. Dig or Die plays up its physics engine in its listing on Steam and the hard work Gaddy Games put into the title shows - water flows from place to place believably, runs off of edges and infiltrates soft material just like real groundwater, while unsupported structures will come tumbling down as you place them.

The latter will surprise the player the moment they try to create a bridge across a canyon. Used to simply placing blocks of material ahead of my legs a la Terraria, I endeavoured to cross a ravine only to tumble to my doom: placing dirt blocks without support just means they cascade to the floor. There are similar surprises ready to shock the player into realising that in Dig or Die, the clue is in the title.

A simple shelter won’t protect you when night comes in this game. At night creatures will converge on your little house on the prairie and really have at it. Unlike other, similar indie sandbox games there is a much larger onus on combat and tower defence in Dig or Die. Trying to balance your crafting materials between creating a good suit of armour and creating another set of lightning turrets is a struggle that will appear frequently. Don’t expect the learning curve to get any shallower as you advance, though - the nights only get harder and harder - if you linger for too long without progressing you will be eventually destroyed by the ferocious fauna of the planet.

The collection of resources and materials is key in the sandbox game and Dig or Die does its best to make the endeavour an interesting one, mainly by allowing the player to mine a substantial amount of material right from the off (necessary, when you consider the enemies it throws at the player late on).

Shortening the material collection phase of the game makes the building more satisfying and rewarding. Trawling through image galleries I’ve seen players that have used the game’s impressive water physics to create hydro-electric plants that are entirely self-sufficient.

Massive engineering feats like these are ultimately impressive but bring up a small flaw in Dig or Die: it’s single-player only. While playing I couldn’t help but feel that the game would be great to play with two or three friends - even if it’s just messing around with the physics.

The ultimate aim of Dig or Die, rather ironically, isn’t to burrow into the core of the planet but to escape it. Unlike a lot of sandbox games it gives the player a definite aim at the end of it all, and makes for some tense encounters as you try to gather the requisite materials. No matter how intricate and well-defended your stronghold is in Dig or Die there will be a creature that will work its way in. Enemy variety in the game is a welcome feature, and means that the player is often forced onto the back foot, dealing with new creatures as soon as they appear. The planet is well-populated with these critters, and perhaps some players may find the amount of enemies you're expected to combat slightly overwhelming.

While Dig or Die is nothing to write home about when it comes to graphics, the game’s visual style carries it well. The game benefits from a clear visual style and direction that helps to immerse the player in the world they're exploring. The game runs smoothly from exploring to combat to building to mining, offering great transitions in look and feel at each turn. Despite this, some caves can become a little samey after a while, especially when you’re grinding your way towards the final objective.

For a game in the final stages of its Early Access phase, Dig or Die is surprisingly feature-complete. With Gaddy Games releasing steady updates to the title you can expect it to only get better and better. Dig or Die is a game for those who like their sandbox games to be a little bit more shooty and a lot more difficult. A gem for the purists of the genre as well as those looking to get into it, watch this space, Dig or Die is going places.