PREVIEW: Abiotic Factor

Alien Invasion Wasn’t In The Job Description

HIGH A fresh, yet nostalgic approach to the survival genre.

LOW When making soup is an unlockable skill, we’ve gone too far.

WTF I didn’t think a toilet minigame would be such a big selling point.

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Abiotic Factor, developed by Deep Field Games, is a first-person, story-based, real-time action survival title hosting up to six players.

The action centers around a secret government facility where players start their first day on the job amid an all-out catastrophe. With guidance from the scientists still active around the compound, players must strip the facility for useful parts to survive while fighting off any extraterrestrial creatures that may be slipping through cosmic cracks.

The draw of Abiotic Factor is immediately apparent thanks to its promotional imagery and concept, taking the best parts of the survival genre such as base creation and weapon crafting and infusing it with the atmosphere and nostalgia of the venerable Half-Life, which it takes heavy inspiration from via its scientists, secret facilities and portals to alien worlds, all of which lend it a natural familiarity.

Rather than waking up on a tropical beach butt-naked (which seems to be the go-to for developers within this genre) the facility as the starting location adds an extra level necessary for Abiotic Factor’s success. Staplers, table legs and unidentified ‘bio scrap’ are the types of resources players will find and use to craft various tools to combat this new, threatening landscape. The crafting itself is easily one of the best I’ve seen for a survival title, and the recipes for tools and objects are locked behind simple intuitive minigames which give the player the chance to have an understanding about how they are making any particular item.

The environment offers challenges and tactics for how to navigate progression. The facility itself is run on power, and power is limited. Players will find sockets dotted around the compound which they can draw from to power different stations — but as they will quickly find out, this power is not constant. At night, everything will go on ‘sleep’ mode and shut down, adding a passive timer to the gameplay. This experience was terrifying the first few times I was plunged into darkness — the only glow of light coming from the security bots who do not distinguish the players from the alien threat.

Despite these elements which make Abiotic Factor a fresh and smart addition to the survival genre, it does make a few choices that hinder the gameplay, rather than add to it.

For example, the combat takes a backseat to the story and atmosphere. Each combat encounter felt lackluster and repetitive — step, slash, dodge, step, slash and repeat. As someone who built up the throwing skill to add variety (and potentially impale enemies), there was no real opportunity to use this until later in the campaign, and even then it wasn’t worth the time or effort.

Speaking of not being worth the effort, in some of the later levels players will find enemy soldiers with weapons capable of killing in two or three shots. Clearing out these camps takes a lot of resources and time, but after clearing them and leaving the area for a couple of minutes, the enemies respawn back, erasing any sense of progress and making it all feel frustrating.

As for the skills, I’m an absolute sucker for progression and skill trees, but Abiotic Factor misses the mark in this area by having too many basic things locked away, and earning them gives little thrill. For instance, to throw my chosen weapons I had to level up the “sharp weapons” skill, rather than having the simple ability to throw them from the start. This was also an issue with cooking. To add meat or vegetables to hot water in order to make soup, I had to level up my cooking — it made me question why the character was lacking such basic human function.

Thankfully, while those aspects may not be up to snuff, it’s clear that Deep Field Games have focused on the setting and story. Players will enlist the help of fellow scientists and security guards to hack and slash their way through the facility. Audio logs left behind will slowly piece together how this outbreak happened, and how to combat this alien threat. Eventually, the player will reach alien worlds to explore which dial the atmosphere and cryptid horror to an eleven, challenging players to survive in dire circumstances.

While the appealing concept of marrying Half-Life to a survival gameplay experience is what brought me into the world of Abiotic Factor, I ultimately stayed for the atmosphere and storytelling. Despite some repetition when it comes to gathering materials, Deep Field Games managed to fill their adventure with unique moments and a new interpretation of classic material that caught me by surprise and kept me wanting more.   

— Tom Porter

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This title is currently in Early Access.