There is a moment at the start of The Solus Project that recalls the beginnings of Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. Instead of stepping out of an underground Vault, however, you emerge from a crashed spaceship on an alien world with only one objective: survive.
That is easier said than done, as reaching this primeval planet has been the object of a fifteen-year journey and you are the only survivor. Gliese-6143-C is a world as beautiful as it is hostile with temperatures dropping from well below freezing at night to desert temperatures during the day. Finding a way to phone home then, is a matter of perseverance. Your trapped astronaut needs food, water, sleep (which is one method of saving the game), and more as you’re guided by a PDA-type device and the surprisingly intact survival notes of one of your colleagues.
And yet, it is essential that you do survive and not only for yourself. The Earth, we’re informed, has been destroyed (which sucks, all my stuff is there) and the last survivors of humanity huddled in the shadow of Pluto depend on you to find them a new home.
Exploring the wreckage and the surrounding area almost immediately confirms that humanity was not the first intelligent species to visit this world and what happened to the previous race is part of a greater mystery. When your ship crashes somewhere called “The Shores of Desolation”, however, unraveling that enigma is hardly your first priority.
With a bit of crafting that would make the people of Far Cry Primal proud, you need to pick up rocks to combine them into a sharp rock, vital for cutting ropes and weeds (useful for lighting fires). Initially, your ship’s still-burning propulsion system will do the trick but as you move further from the crash site the struggle to survive escalates. You’re not completely in the dark, your PDA keeps you informed of the stats you need to monitor in order to survive but once you’ve mastered your basic needs, managing them becomes almost second nature and the desire to explore the planet and uncover its mysteries rises to the surface. The game’s difficulty options give you the choice of focusing on exploring, survival, or a mix of both.
You get the feeling that something bad happened on this planet, perhaps something related to your crash even though the megalithic monuments and tombs are clearly long abandoned. Sinister runs and other aesthetic touches add to what is initially, at least, a threadbare story, building a narrative through context and visual cues. And while you are the only survivor of the crash, it almost feels like you’re being watched as you navigate the planet although that does mean you’re never exactly lonely. Items such as relics boost your character’s attributes and the quickly-discovered teleportation device adds a puzzle element for when you need to reach otherwise inaccessible places.
For all that, The Solus Project is a game about survival and the challenges you must face as you wander further from the crash site merely helps to remind you of that fact.
The Solus Project was developed on Unreal Engine by Teotl Studios. The game is currently available through Steam Early Access the Xbox game preview program and is set to launch (or crash?) in May. It already feels like a finished game and in a year of games such as Adr1ft and No Man’s Sky looked to be a very worthy addition to the space exploration and survival genre.
The Solus Project was developed and published by Teotl Studios and Grip Games. It is set for release in May and currently costs $14.99 on Steam Early Access. A copy of the game was provided by the developer.
