My pessimistic side is that the devs didn’t have enough of a plan to fill this large landscape, which is possible. There should be just leftovers and desolation. My optimistic side says that because the story supports the idea that there were several groups that went down this path and several that failed, the world here should seem empty, sans enemies and wildlife that thrives in the cold. I’m conflicted whether this is playing off the story or if this world was so large that there wasn’t enough to fit into it. While the environment is huge and you will want to explore every nook and cranny, it can at times seem a bit empty. As a survival game, this works well.Ī knock on this survival design is that the world itself seems a bit bland. I never felt isolated in the middle of nowhere, even when I was exploring. Anyway, the gameplay really does give you enough wiggle room to make mistakes and provides enough direction and time to make sure you are in the right place when you need to haul ass back to shelter. No one wants to play a chore-driven game…unless you enjoy power washing. That’s a tough balance to make survival fun because sometimes the struggle to survive in a game makes the gameplay a chore. I have never been a huge fan of survival games like this in the past, The Long Dark is the lone exception, but I felt like the game provided enough of everything (food, shelter, and time to gather) in the right amounts to make this a fun survival experience. Gathering items, hunting for your food, and making sure you have a good place to stay before you completely freeze over will motivate you to explore and keep laser-focused. Since the entire story wraps itself around the idea that the world is freezing, and that your hero is trying to do something about it before they die, it makes sense that the first design is survival. Surviving the elements and past design flaws The first big connection between the story and gameplay design is the survival component. Trust me, games that have good stories generally have gameplay design in mind with those stories. For the most part, the game’s narrative does a decent job of working well with the gameplay design. When you have a good story, it really does make the gameplay design choices a bit more meaningful, if done right. Now, saying the narrative drives the ship isn’t a knock on the gameplay. Again, the narrative drives the entire game, otherwise, the rest of the game would be bleak as the story itself. The scattered bits of tales and dead bodies that go with it will provide you with the right amount of motivation to keep exploring the entire land, and it’s a big land. It sends you on a non-linear quest of sorts to uncover more about this land’s history and those who failed to accomplish what you have set out to rectify. The narrative is solid, mysterious, and it encourages you to go explore the land, even if it’s only to see what’s out there. To be frank, this might be the most interesting part of the entire experience. The scattered remains of skeletons with notes, the ancient frozen statues that show some sort of struggle or history of the land, and the deadly monsters that have survived the tundra that are ready to kill all of these are waiting for your hero. Your adventure, which leads you to crash on the shores of the gods’ frozen wasteland, has shreds of the dead everywhere around it. From the get-go, the story is bleak at best. You play the role of a hero that is either going to die from the world freezing over or explore a desolate region where the gods hang out in order to try and figure out how to stop the world from freezing. The story behind Praey for the Gods is simple enough. Also, they fight giant beings.ĭoes it work? Not all of it, but it has some really redeeming qualities that are worth a look. It’s an interesting concept where you are requiring getting players through a meaningful narrative that is powerful on the surface, while also providing the option of not needing them to stick to the linear plan. What I found with it was an interesting open-world experience that takes the concept of Shadow of the Colossus and mixes it together with a survival adventure. Over the holiday break, I was given the opportunity to give No Matter Studios Praey for the Gods a go whilst enjoying the much-needed holiday breather.
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