As a long-time game enjoyer (on Steam) i’ve decided to try the game “as intended”. I have bought a sealed copy on PS4 (dated 2019), dusted off my old console and gave it a try. After some tinkering i’ve managed to make saves work and at the same time i tried not update the game (as console always try to do so after turning on).
Wow, it has changed A LOT during the years. The version 1.00 is playable, apart from the jet-turbine sound generated by not-so-young console, fps dipping to like 15 and absence of many QOL things form current version, such as bike or PLUNDRA. It really felt like a survival horror, at least at Archipelago Region.
My goal is to obtain GRG, some gas tanks to explore other islands. I dont know if they are DLC-locked, so if anyone could comment i would be grateful to know, because getting there would be slightly painful.
Also i’ve been thinking - is it possible to join game from other console running version 1.00? It would be fun to explore this desolate world with someone (man, machine spawns were so scarce back then that every encounter felt like an epic battle)
Feel free to ask anything about this Time Capsule, i will try to answer Your questions
I don’t think so, but could be possible.
Even if online you can start the game without having the newest update.
It isn’t server based, just peer to peer, so a version check between two players with version 1.00 should give you an ok.
I would like to see some pictures, of the how the in game map looks, and perhaps some pictures of the now revamped areas to see how much has changed. That would be cool.
The copy i’ve bought was an opened complete Collector’s Edition, sadly “second version” - without wooden dala horse, but with in-game map printed on piece of cloth. THAT is one serious artifact of place that “could have been”. I will post the photo of it soon
Yeah, that’s the one. I love how they included road network on Himfjall (before the announcement of the DLC), the island above it and straight road to The Mainland. Not to mention the small road section on Aspholmen.
It shows that back in the 2019 there were plans to intorduce this island to the game after Himfjall (just as its name suggests in game files - DLC Island 2). Sadly “it is what it is”, sometimes i wonder what kind of theme it would be.
Version 1 is the version I first played the story on, and that was definitely the version I had the most fun with. In my opinion the story was better before they added the npcs in the intro missions. Kind of took away the almost “empty” feeling in the world, which you normally wouldn’t want in a game, but that was kind of the point, and they did it well too. The early versions were for sure the best, I still have the disk for my old ps4, and I can even run version 1.00 on my ps5, but I haven’t done it in a long time, since I play on pc now
Norrmyra Artillery Base, without its arena or Famous Hatch. I swear, up to last update i believed that it was an elevator to the underground tunnel network connecting warious parts of Östertörn
The main course - road to Mainland, even with some roads drawn. I would love to get there, blow myselfup there and check if there actually was some sort of terrain modification
Some additional info about the core gameplay during my short playthrough:
Lack of bases, experimental weapons, PLUNDRA, Rivals - the most vanilla of all ice cream flavours
Moving anywhere is A CHORE - no bikes, no stamina bar, inability to go prone and absence of detection meter makes fighting even prototype runners something to remember (btw, im terrible at playing FPS games on a gamepad)
Game feels “underbaked” on many fields (common thing up to this very day, lol) - low machine spawn rates, lack of many options (such as difficulty setting, graphics settings only limited to FOV and screen borders)
Tanks on ice skates They move very slow, “moonwalks” on flat surfaces and most of all - they lack the ability to run. They always nobly stride to Your direction (ofc if they wont forget / lose aggro on character, as it happens rather often)
Draw distance was better, machines were drew up to 450m (making the original 400m Marksman achievement doable)
Constant fear of crashing the game - mainly to the age of system itself and always-on leafblower mode
Feel free to ask any 1.00 related questions, i will try to answer them (maybe not on an instant - i dont think i will be able to finish the main story, but i’ll try to crawl myself up as far as i can)
Here’s some captured Xbox One gameplay a few months back from installing the game from disc and being offline 100%. Glitchy, scary, aggressive robots, no plundra, no weapon wheel. This is the game I love and have the best memories from when it was super difficult and was really a survival game and completely its own game.
After playing for about 2 hours i can 100% agree that “back in the days” machines were more difficult to handle. Especially Hunters - those are bane of my existence and borderline broken pieces of shite. Their leap attack was “laser guided”, meaning that they locked onto player’s position and after commencing the attack it had almost 100% accuracy. They could leap onto You including excesive clipping inside buildings and teleporting behind Your back whispering “nothing personal kid”. A group of 10+ Hunters (although rare) was a death sentence
Also our little friends Ticks were more annoying than ever, their leap attack was frame-based instead of one time collision, meaning that during one leap single Tick could do up to 30+ damage! Moreover, their cooldown were shorten back then, so a single Tick could easily solo You, especially with having terrible aim with a gamepad
Runners were almost identical to present version, maybe their machine gun burst were longer, but their lunge attack showed me another major inconvience - ragdoll / downtime of player was ridiculously long AND machines could attack when downed of Your feet! That means constant player stunlock and inevitable death when encountering a combo of Hunter / Runner pack. Madness
Harvesters ale almost the same, some animations and sounds are different, but core gameplay and behaviour remains the same. Tanks cannot run, they lose aggro very quickly (at least prototype variant, maybe higher tier behaves in a different manner). All in all big machines are not as terrifying as their smaller kin. Maybe they are a bit bullet-spongier but this might be the fault of mine 1C weapons and inability to hold a steady aim
One more thing about machine behaviour - i think that in older builds more machines could attack you at once. Nowadays it feels like it is more like a turn based strategy in which every machine takes their turn to hurt You. Back then i saw at least 2 machines firing at player constantly with the rest of the pack non-stop moving and relocating. I would love to try to mow them down with lategame build with mouse and keyboard to clear the confirmation bias, but i’m certain that survival horror vibes were more present back then
Thanks, @BlackPlywood, for letting us tag along on your trip back to 2019. I was totally taken with the game back then. It was scary, insanely hard, and amazingly captivating. An entire world to explore where any incautious move would be swiftly punished. For me the game broke with the introduction of Rivals and silly and overpowered experimental weapons. And all the crowd pleasing that followed with base building, vanity and weapons packs, weird NPCs, iron church cults, and a russian invasion that did make little sense to me. It probably catered for many, but for me it was at the expense of what saw as a great potential in storytelling. Perhaps because I’ve always played the game alone, exploration and story was my primary entertainment. I did play along for years though but with lesser enthusiasm.
I’m not done yet, so far my playthrough resembles speedruning a bit - constant marathon from one safehouse to another as combat is very exhausting During my exploration i saw many places that are drastically different from current version - when i’m home i’ll take some screenshots of my current favourites and post them here.
Let’s begin at Norrmyra Artillery Base. As You can see back then there was no Arena, only concrete rectangular foundation and some leveled ground. On the right side also were two random car wrecks, but that’s it. The thing that disturbs me the most is the marked location - marker is underground, meaning since day 1 there were plans for something down there. I think that originally there was supposed to be underground tunnel network linking all areas of the map, but this idea was ultimately scrapped.
This peaceful settlement is… Stora Dyrbo At least before nuking it to ashes. I tried to go to the location of future crater, but there are many freeroaming Hunters in the area, greatly slowing down my progress as a journalist
This standard looking hill will be Ringfort. As one of the texts in game says:
“Thanks to Uncle Calle’s directions and knowledge of the area, you found an old prehistoric ringfort called Mullvadsberget, which also had been a archaeological dig”
Oh those silly archaeologists, they began to dig during the Machine Uprising, how foolish of them
F23 Air Base, looking really empty back then. I was shocked how “hermetic” the fence around the Base was at launch. There are almost no gaps in fencing, meaning the only way of getting in is either from North at main enterance or by jumping at low section of fence that is close to an elevated ground
As a bonus picture i took this one while running my arse off to the safehouse while being “chased” (or should i say - ominously walked) by a group of 5 Tanks. To be honest - Runners were much more of a threat than those big bois.
One more thing to sum up yesterday’s journey - devs were kind of a jokesters. When i found some GRG ammo to stock up for my further plans of exploring islands / Mainland i was shocked to realize that ammo doesn’t stack, every rocket occupies one inventory space. That… is a major inconvenience. I’m yet to find any quality GRG, but this detail could really hurt my plan. But nevertheless, i’ll try my best to discover more forgotten places from this janky ahh build
(man, machine spawns were so scarce back then that every encounter felt like an epic battle)
then the aliens put bodies back to hide there tracks, lol
