There’s a special feeling of productivity and cleanness from taking raw waste such as plastic and turning it into water storage or watching people band together to create literal and metaphorical light in the dark wilderness. No matter their background, the point was building something better and sustainable - and maybe roughing up a few dozen clans who thought differently, but that’s beside the point.

That’s what intrigued me about Surviving the Aftermath. Another wanted to help heal the physical and emotional wounds of others and work toward a brighter future. One character lost their partner in the great catastrophe and was searching for a new life. Their identities and goals are what intrigued me. The specialist selection screen also has little context to help with your first game or two. I picked a scout and warrior the first time, though not because I was particularly keen on their perks. Surviving the Aftermath gives you nearly a dozen unique characters with interesting backstories, and they’re the heroes of your settlement with special abilities to help in certain areas, such as fighting or scouting. Surviving the Aftermath adopts a minimalist approach to its tutorials that often meant I was scrambling to figure out what it expected from meĪfter that, it’s time to meet your specialists. A happy side effect of confusing difficulty options or not, I appreciated the flexibility.

They woke up grumpy every day thanks to a lack of hygiene facilities and a dearth of drinkable water, but it had minimal effect on the settlement’s overall satisfaction. Happy survivors happy something that rhymes with survivorsĮither way, it turns out my wish for happy survivors was a good thing. More extensive options or descriptions, or maybe even just preset game modes, would make this step much easier. Is 75% difficulty with a moderate chance of natural disasters and easy to please civilians a good formula? You probably won’t know in your first game, though admittedly, it’s difficult to figure out even in your second game and beyond. Surviving the Aftermath asks you to tailor the difficulty as you see fit, and while the available options are extensive, there’s not much context to help you know what you’re actually doing. Your journey into the polluted wilderness starts with a set of choices. Paradox’s survival management sim has the potential to be something special, but never builds on that to set itself apart from other, more unique games in the genre. I mean what Surviving the Aftermath has me doing to contend with these disasters is something I’ve seen before, many times. I don’t mean that in a philosophical sense, although the exploitation of resources, warmongering, and frequent disasters have clear parallels with modern society. The end of the world is a familiar thing in Surviving the Aftermath.

Surviving the aftermath xbox review