On the face of it, there’s not much in Once Human that hasn’t been done a thousand times before. Better, too, in some instances. Seemingly the very epitome of design-by-committee, it’s everything you may expect a free-to-play multiplayer open-world survival horror to be, down to its garish shop and two-track battle pass. There’s about eleventy gazillion menus and items to track, your UI is painfully cluttered, and in some places, the game simply feels unfinished; you can’t use a controller for example, and your character seemingly only communicates by waving their arms about wildly, like improv semaphore.
And yet here I am, at 3:30am – that’s real-life time, not the in-game clock, I’m embarrassed to say – creeping around this abandoned hospital because I have just one more crate to find to “complete” the stronghold, and I think there might be a fabulous gun hiding somewhere inside.
Once Human may be a drop in the post-apocalyptic survival games ocean, but it’s an intriguing one. Rather than struggling to survive in a world ravaged by war or plague, we’re fighting to save humanity against the deadly otherworld organism Stardust that turns everyday items into bloodthirsty fiends. The more of the world you explore, the more you’ll find yourself exclaiming, “What the hell is that?!” as an animated satellite dish or drooling suitcase or a bunch of colourful balloons sticking out of where a gorilla’s head should be lurches towards you.
About Author
