Rust meets Resident Evil in this excellent open-world survival game

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SHOULD I PLAY ONCE HUMAN?

Absolutely play this, especially if you like Rust or Minecraft. Once Human offers all the intense building and survival action of Rust, but it adds its own twist on things with quests, interactive boss fights, team battles, and a story about a postapocalyptic world full of strange monsters. It delivers a superb multiplayer survival experience that’s only held back by a few small issues, which seems quite promising for a project that’s only in beta.

TIME PLAYED

I played Once Human for thirteen hours. I’ve completed the tutorial, prologue, and more than a dozen quests. I’ve beaten two big bosses and have already reached level 10. I’m currently trying to explore some of the game world’s outer regions.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT ONCE HUMAN?

• Building bases. I loved building houses, creating fences to guard areas, and crafting places to do research or make stuff. Building my base was one of the most calming things I could do in Once Human, and it was so fulfilling to see it all come together.

• Exploring for loot. Once Human’s map is vast. I found caves loaded with mineral ore, military settlements full of zombies, and underground bunkers full of scrap and resources. There was always something new to discover and loot to grab along this journey.

• Killing zombies. There’s just something satisfying about loading up a crossbow and seeing a zombie get catapulted a few feet because of the impact of the arrow. I had a great time fighting all the different kinds of monsters in Once Human, and I was even surprised by the diversity as well. There were mindless zombies, exploding spiders, wailing banshees, and a myriad of many other grotesque creatures in this world—and I loved killing them all.

• Talking (and surviving) with friends. Once Human presents a pretty terrifying vision of the future, but at least I could relax and enjoy it with other players from time to time. I was able to band up with others and form a team to battle some ugly-looking boss monster and reap the rewards as a group. Fighting alongside other players made for a more immersive and communal experience.

• Storage boxes and other quality-of-life features. I was able to build anything once I’d claimed a territory in Once Human. But the most important thing to get down in new territory right away was a storage box. Whatever I put in the box was able to be used at every crafting or research station I might discover in that territory. This meant I didn’t need to run back and forth getting stuff out of boxes just to put together what I needed. It’s a revolutionary time-saving feature, and one that I’d love to see any and all future survival games copy.

Speaking of time-saving, Once Human also has fast travel in the form of teleporters that I found dotted around. Since the map is so freakin’ big, these were a godsend.

• Making the postapocalypse all my own. I enjoyed the freedom I had with customizing my character in Once Human—enough so that I spent forty minutes just in character creation! The customization doesn’t stop there, though. I was able to decorate that aforementioned base with a variety of structures, facilities, and furniture. From picking out the perfect wallpaper to setting up seating to finding the right mood lighting, I loved embracing the coziness of setting up my home when I needed a break from fighting zombies and scavenging for goods.

• Surviving the environment. The hardest part of Once Human isn’t killing monsters, but surviving the elements. I had to make sure I ate, drank water, kept my sanity meter high, and didn’t consume anything poisonous or harmful that would get me sick or I'd begin to lose stamina, recovery, speed, and health. These environmental dangers kept me engaged and ultimately made me more adventurous while on quests.

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT IN ONCE HUMAN?

• Selecting stuff. I had a hard time trying to pick up items, place down structures, open storage boxes, and cut down trees in Once Human because the interface gets very finicky around multiple objects. Sometimes I had no trouble picking up loot or collecting berries; and other times I had to angle my camera very meticulously to get the game to acknowledge the correct thing I wanted to interact with. On top of that, the ground in the game world is rarely perfectly flat, so setting down the perfect foundation for a base is nearly impossible—especially if you want to create a mansion on a mountaintop or a fishing dock next to a river.

• No other servers right now. If you’re planning to play the beta version of Once Human outside of North America, be prepared for a few technical issues. Only North American servers are up at the moment, so anyone playing outside of that region will inevitably experience some lag and connection issues.

• Stairs, balconies, and columns can’t be customized. When it comes to home decorating, I’m a perfectionist. While I could customize almost everything in Once Human, I wasn’t given any options for changing up the look of stairs, balconies, and columns. Hopefully as the game moves through beta and toward full release, we’ll get more options for putting together an aesthetically pleasing house.

• Walking sucks. Don’t get me wrong, I love how big the map is in Once Human. But I found it excruciating to constantly walk back and forth between places. Even with those handy teleporters, I sometimes had to hold down the walk button for five-plus minutes to reach certain out-of-the-way locations. Here’s hoping for more teleporters. Or heck, even just an auto-walk button.

• It’s a traditional survival resource grind. This isn’t really an issue, but more of a warning. If you’ve never played Rust or even Minecraft, you might be a bit disappointed when you realize that Once Human is all about grinding resources to build structures, craft gear, and just generally make progress. I spent a lot of time chopping down trees, mining copper, and killing enemies while looking for specific drops. I absolutely live for this gameplay loop, but be warned if you’re not a fan of other survival games that have a similar grind.

PLATFORM TESTED

PC.

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