Bay 12 Games Forum

*EDIT
One possible alternative which I think would be a worthy system, would be instead of having a caravan of stellar objects, have a chain of suns and moons, but they turn off and on depending on the time it's supposed to be on the ground. So the suns are fixed objects in the sky but appear to be just one sun moving

Icarus

First of all, they've produced a pretty cool little video that explains some of the story behind the game. Definitely recommend checking it out.
https://youtu.be/aZyd1e51YMo

Icarus is yet another survival game; thankfully, not another attempt to make the genre PvP. Icarus is PvE, with a fairly large array of missions, each of which constitutes an isolated game instance. So you drop down with almost nothing, craft your tools and build up a base and technology until you feel ready to venture out and tackle your quest objective, then leave behind everything you made before preparing for the next quest. You keep your character level and the various blueprints and talents you've unlocked. You can also spend resources earned from these quests to unlock and build 'Workshop Items', which you can take with you between missions and really help save time on new missions by basically skipping the first few tech tiers.

Playing with friends is strongly recommended. Death comes with a harsh xp penalty, which can be avoided by simply having a friend come revive you. And the talent tree offers a lot of opportunity for specialization, so it's nice having different people who can excel at gathering different resources.

I really like the feel of combat. Every other survival game I've tried has really janky feeling PvE; monsters who get stuck on terrain, or can't run as fast as the player, or are otherwise extremely easy to cheat. None of those issues are present in Icarus; enemies can climb anything you can climb, and will tear through buildings at a speed that is not too quick or too slow. And enemies will run faster than a player, though players may have some limited success weaving through trees and tall rocks to get some distance.
And these other games usually have no 'right way' to do PvE, just button mashing the monsters as they hit back and hoping their health bar empties first. Icarus PvE is not super complicated, but it gets the job done. Stealth attacks give a healthy burst of damage, as do headshots. Precise but timely aiming at these moving targets will be rewarded far more than button mashing. And simply picking the right time and place to fight so you don't get overwhelmed when your target calls all of it's friends over to play with you.

Steam reviews are currently 'Mixed', which is pretty bad in a market where even mediocre games usually end up with 'Very Positive' ratings. Indeed, the only reason I gave Icarus a chance is because a friend wanted someone to play with an offered to buy it for me. If I'd known how much fun I would have, I would not have hesitated to pay for it myself. There are a few bugs, but none game-breaking. Development is still ongoing, but plenty of game elements have already been implemented for a full experience. Icarus easily deserves better ratings than it's getting imo.

Tired to support behavioural problems 6 days a week. If you got  a whole car trailer + car worth of trash every 5-10 days yore doing something seriously wrong. Why do they all have buckets filled with phytotoxins... This morons haven't emptied a single one of these poisons. Our lack of strict rules has created it's own demand.

I've been hearing these same pro-Covid mutterings over here. "I'm alright, everyone I know is alright, the only problem is the costs/staffing/businee-model/whatever and the only way to fix that is to have fewer precautions..."