A new free survival game Once Human isn’t basking in praise however it does possess unnecessarily detailed character…
It’s time to create some gorgeous Ogres.
By Tyler Wilde
Jul 10, 2024 12:22 AM
Free-to-play survival game Once Human launched on Steam today, and after playing the NetEase production for an hour, my main observation is that the feeling of uncertainty and discovery that the survival genre used to be all about has lately been replaced with tutorial screens and boring exposition—the price of popularity, I guess! It’s possible that Once Human opens up after you get past the copper ingot crafting lessons, and I’ve seen some cool monster designs so far, so that’s a positive. Some of them were even of my own making.
Character creators are an intriguing option: RPGs with a story-driven focus that are about the characters may provide a handful of boring hairstyles and presets that aren’t attractive However, then games such as Once Human comes along and allows you to customize “mid lower-lip thickness”. It’s extremely granular, and comes with no security features to keep players from filling their servers with a variety of space monsters.
Once Human doesn’t have the wacky, Saints Row-like vibe–it’s striving for Control however it fails. And the character presets that are giddy are all incredibly groovy and don’t seem to make sense to offer us many ways to squash and stretch the characters. Since it does, however it does feel like you’re required to. What kind of slob can you stick with a standard hottie you have so many options to ruin them?
By moving through the “fitness” slider all the way to the left turns your character into bricks. There’s a slider that controls head size as well, allowing you to make them a brick with a small head. There’s a slider dubbed “long legs” that makes their legs longer. It is possible to give them the most wide-mouthed mouth, a face drenched in blood, a half-closed lid which completely cover the pupils. Many options to choose from, though certain options are surprisingly conventional in contrast. It is only possible to select natural hair colors, like.
The original plan for Human was not going to be released with support for multiple characters but the team immediately changed their course after feedback — the Steam reviews aren’t all that positive currently, so you can now create your own characters when you join servers.
The game that accompanied an hour of character-creation experimentation has been a disappointment, but the 10 minutes was a blast. The most striking thing about Once Human is that I got into an online server and play even today. This could be changing as more players test it out, but many games for free play fail immediately after launch, so it’s at a minimum worthy of acknowledgement.
It’s possible to play Once Human on Steam The game is available on Steam, and we’ll provide more in-depth analysis once we’ve played a bit. But I’ll be a little irritated if I find you on the streets and your avatar doesn’t look like a high-speed camera image of a boxer who’s been struck.