Stranded Deep Preview

“Wilsoooonnnn!” Is the first word that comes to mind when playing Stranded Deep, a new addition to the ever growing survival game genre. When taking a first look at the game I noticed the similar aesthetics and feel of The Forest, with beautiful graphics, craftable buildings/weapons, even the opening scene in which you are flying on a plane.

While flying you are forced to serve yourself a martini, (for a private plane you would think someone would be serving you the alcohol.) Making the martini gives you a brief introduction on how to bring up the crafting menu. Much like The Forest, your pilot decides to continue flying through some very choppy weather and your plane ends up with a hole ripped into its side, leading to a brutal crash in the ocean!

Upon regaining consciousness you are told to escape the plane wreckage and hop on the emergency raft, your escape is uneventful until a propeller explosion knocks you unconscious. You find yourself waking up with an island in sight and use a paddle to make your way towards shore. The island you will call home is generally small and quaint compared to other spawn areas in most survival games, however the size of the island is what gives the game a special feel to it. You feel as though you truly have to be careful in how you use your supplies in the beginning because once you use everything up on your island, it’s time to explore.

There are randomly generated islands all over the ocean that have the supplies you need to continue building your home, however they are not easily reached. In order to find supplies you will have to venture out on your battered raft and dodge tiger sharks and great whites that are hell-bent on taking a chunk out of your leg. Your main means of protecting yourself from these carnivorous animals is with a spear or axe, meaning you have to let them get pretty close before you can ward them off. The music when a shark is near adds an element of fright to the game that makes you cautious of going too far into the water without proper protection.

This game looks good! The graphics are beautiful and I had no issue running it on the Ultra setting, even while testing with recording it still achieved a consistent 60fps. The lighting in the game allows the player to feel like they are truly stranded on a tropical island in the middle of the ocean and you can almost feel the sun beating down on you from above!

Gathering food in this game is actually quite fun as you can spear most of the local wildlife and a nifty animation is played when you add the food to your inventory. After spearing a couple of fish and crabs I was ready to prepare my freshly caught food. My cooking experience started with building a small fire and then the true challenge began, I couldn’t figure out how to get my food onto the fire. I tried throwing the food onto the fire in hopes that it would stick to the fire, to my disappointment the food just slid right off. My next attempt involved holding the food over the fire to which I was rewarded with the sound of sizzling food and after about 30 seconds the crab was cooked! Oddly enough food seems to be the priority in this game over water, which is becoming common in survival games. I would assume that water would play a more significant role in the game, however this could all change.

A unique feature in this game is that there is no actual HUD for your food, drink, or health. Your character has a watch that you can check instead, which displays bars showing current health, drink, and food levels adding to the immersion. Another feature in the game is when you accidentally swim into a sea urchin and your arms become covered in bright red sores to indicate that you have been poisoned. This along with blood covering your arms when you get attacked by a shark creates an in-depth experience that makes you feel like you are truly struggling to survive against nature.

Crafting in Stranded Deep is actually what I have always wanted in a survival game in that items are required to be on the ground instead of in your inventory! You are forced to gather supplies in a pile and an icon will pop up when you have enough items to craft something. What makes this crafting system so enjoyable is that it feels like you are truly building something unique each time, rather than just making an axe from inventory items. When you cut down a tree that is far away from your loot pile you can literally drag the tree and chop it up next to the pile. To me this is far more gratifying than having items in your bag and just clicking and saying, “I made a house out of items that somehow fit in a backpack!”

Overall Stranded Deep has quite a lot of potential, especially if the dev team continues to add on the future updates they have promised. I can safely say that this is a fun game even with the few features currently implemented! Being a fan of survival games I am sure that I will be donning my stone spear and going fishing in Stranded Deep again very soon!