Brought to us by Bossa Studios, known for their hit titles I Am Bread and Surgeon Simulator. World’s Adrift is their ambitious Early Access project that’s been in the works for quite some time now. Early builds of the game were available from the game’s website but World’s Adrift finally made its way to Steam earlier this month.
World’s Adrift thrusts players into its gorgeous airborne environment in which they will have to gather resources, build airships and essentially survive everything the world has to throw at them, including other players. If you think of Minecraft but improve the graphics significantly, change the art style, set it in mid-air and incorporate MMO elements, World’s Adrift is what you’ll get.
The game’s character creation tool is slightly lacking with limited options available to choose from. I settled on creating my rather basic looking female character with just a few clothing and hair design changes and set off to explore the world. Little did I know that my experience would turn sour quite quickly.
Players that are unfortunate enough to spawn on a floating island with other, more well-equipped players are going to be in for a rough time. This happened to me upon first starting up the game as I encountered a couple of extremely unfriendly players that would rather shoot first and ask questions later. After being unceremoniously murdered on the spot, I respawned and continued to explore until I encountered the players again and was once again, murdered. This was frustrating, to say the least especially since the game was still in the process of teaching me how to play.
Interestingly enough, Bossa Studios have acknowledged that player “griefing” or instances of players murdering other players just starting out, can ruin a person’s enjoyment of the game and they seek to address this quite soon. Bossa Co-Founder, Henrique Olifiers, explained what Early Access means to Worlds Adrift and went on to state that the next few weeks will be critical to the game’s development as they actively listen to feedback and implement changes that the community wants.
World’s Adrift seeks to be a community shaped MMO with aim of supplying players with a user-generated environment that one can explore and live in. The world is definitely gorgeous and user-generated content generally means that the game won’t ever become stale. This is a formula that has worked for Ark Survival Evolved and numerous other games over time so hopefully, Bossa’s gamble on relying on the community pays off. The world in the game already has such a large amount of content created from early builds but since launching on Steam, this will significantly increase.
Gameplay wise, World’s Adrift is an incredibly relaxing sandbox when other players aren’t around to obliterate you. Exploring is genuinely fun and using your research tool to learn more about the world and its contents actively pushes you to keep exploring. Shipbuilding is slightly complicated but an overall enjoyable experience. The most fun to be had however lies in using your grappling hook to explore the floating islands that populate the atmosphere. Thanks to the game’s physics engine, using the grappling hook is an experience that needs to be tried out to understand fully. Once you get used to it though, you’ll be hooked!
World’s Adrift in its current state is an enjoyable MMO with numerous smart design choices. There’s a sense of permanence in the world as actions such as cutting down a tree or creating a new island are retained across the server. The menus are user-friendly and learning how to play is simple enough for anyone to enjoy thanks to the tutorial and community forums providing guidance.
The game may currently be causing grief for newbies thanks to the toxicity of human beings, but Bossa Studios are hard at work at addressing this in game. The studio is also implementing large changes requested by the community and are teasing the implementation of improving “Alliances” with other players to explore and create together. If you’re planning on picking up World’s Adrift, you’ll be in for a long-haul flight to full release day but will certainly enjoy the journey as it’s constantly being updated and improved upon
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