Oxygen Not Included Review

My friend played 911 hours of Oxygen Not Included, and while that certainly does seem like a lot, especially compared to my double digits worth of hours, bear in mind that this is a game you can keep running in the background and it’ll keep on keeping on. It released in 2019, so it’s now five years old and has received a lot of updates since launch.

A survival management game set on a planetoid, you begin with three survivors of a nondescript catastrophe. Exiled to the nearest live-sustaining object, your mission is to help them thrive and find a way off of the planetoid — though the game can keep going if you have some of the DLC.

When you start the game your survivors (AKA Duplicants) can dig and they can construct a limited amount of equipment. Every so often you can create a new Duplicant, which is handy as you expand your base from the starting biome, but you have to manage your resources carefully. You need access to food and water, but also beds for each Duplicant, and sure that’s a lot of water in that area nearby, but it will run out, there are no infinite resources on your planetoid! Admittedly, some will replenish over time (and not always the ones you want), or you can for instance connect two water pools together.

Each Duplicant earns experience which gains them skill points, so you can for example make them carry more, dig through harder materials, or be able to provide medical care. Early on, at least, food poisoning is a big issue. Some Duplicants have an iron stomach so won’t suffer from it, but maybe that same one will be a loud snorer so you never get full positives from a newcomer.

The further you explore Oxygen Not Included, the more you need to be mindful of. Yes, you have the “breathing” thing taken care of, and food is abundant now after that brief period of near-starvation, but there’s ice over there! So build some heaters — but now your energy use is much higher, and your generator has run out of fuel, but you can’t find any more coal in the viewable area.

The knock-on effects of everything can overwhelm, to be quite honest. This isn’t my kind of game, it’s quite stressful especially when the Duplicants won’t do what you want them to, even with the Priority Level set to full. But I can’t stop playing! I’ve had a go with a couple of planetoids, and since they’re randomly generated you get something different each time. The Duplicants are also random, so if you get three awful picks right at the start just try again — like trying to get a shiny Pokémon.

The art has a hand-drawn style to it, with even the straight lines not being actually straight. It gives everything a lot of character and you’re never left wondering if that’s a research console or a crafting bench, every item is unique. While you can turn on filters to see a heat map or which gas is prevalent in the area, a nice visual touch is just a splash of colour. If things are a hazy blue, then your Duplicants should be able to breathe fine. Brown is more carbon dioxide, red is hydrogen… So you don’t have to keep referring to other displays while moving around assigning tasks.

There’s not a lot of audio in Oxygen Not Included, especially when you’re zoomed out. The closer you get, the more you’ll hear (obviously), but you will always get a chime of some kind when research finishes, or you can print a new Duplicant. But that means it’s a good game to play if you fancy watching something on another screen — or the same screen and don’t mind alt-tabbing. There is music, but it’s quite muted.

While it’s easy to see why my friend had 900+ hours on this game, it’s not without its flaws. For instance, something that has been present for years at this point is how at the start of each new “day” cycle, the game stutters very noticeably. This would happen when I’d watch streams during Discord calls with my friend a few years ago, so while it’s a minor annoyance it’s still shocking that it has persisted.

There is also the aforementioned “Duplicants not doing what you want them to do” issue, which the developer tried to limit with a priority system, but unfortunately, the Duplicants do whatever they want sometimes. Oh, mopping under the newly-punched lake hole? Clearly more important than building the oxygen scrubber to clean the air…

There is a lot of charm in Oxygen Not Included, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t like this genre. Even though you can queue up some tasks and then ignore the game while they run, I still couldn’t tear myself away. While it might not be for everyone, with a new DLC that just came out and the one from 2021, there is more than enough content available for those who do enjoy it.