It is a hardcore survival simulator in which you will spend days trying to make yourself a pickaxe. If you are looking for a game where you will have to work really hard to survive, this game is for you. Read on to discover everything that makes Vintage Story the best sandbox game out there.
Mechanics: Hard Work Pays Off
In most other survival games, you can just cut a giant oak tree with your bare hands, put some wood into a grid, and get yourself a pickaxe. However, in Vintage Story, you are required to spend a lot of effort to create your gear.
- Stone Knapping: Creating a knife or an axe head in this game requires not only combining several stones together in a menu, but also knapping the flint. You have to hold a stone in one hand and hit another stone with it, gradually removing tiny voxels of rock and creating a blade.
- Clay Forming: To make a bowl in which you will cook a good stew, you will have to find some raw clay, create it layer-by-layer and voxel-by-voxel, and finally bake it in a pit kiln that you will have to prepare yourself.
- Metallurgy and Smithing: Transition from the Stone Age to the Copper Age (and later to the Bronze, Iron, and Steel ages) is an epic milestone. You will have to prospect the surface nuggets, pan the loose materials, melt them in a crucible, pour the metal in a mold, and then forge it using your hammer and anvil. Each blow forms the metal, making the creation of a simple sword or pickaxe very rewarding.
Game Loop: Winter is Coming (And Drifters)
The developers of Vintage Story are not playing around with the environment. The game features absolutely realistic, full cycles of seasons and weather that will test your readiness for the upcoming challenges. Living in the temperate biome, you will eventually encounter winters that will freeze you and destroy all the crops. You cannot survive on foraging alone forever.
Due to the previous fact, food preservation becomes crucial in the game. All the food will spoil over time. In order to survive the winter months, you will have to learn how to rotate the crops to manage the nutrients in the soil, preserve your vegetables in airtight sealed crocks, keep your food in cold cellars, and salt the meat.
However, hunger and freezing are not the only things you have to deal with. This game is built upon a subtle Lovecraftian theme, with terrible events of Temporal Storms. They are screen-warping apocalyptic events in which the rusty gears of the universe clash, tearing the sky apart and spawning monsters named Drifters. You are not an invincible superhero. During the Temporal Storms, you'd better lock yourself in your reinforced shelter and listen to the strange noises outside, hoping for the best.
Dev Dedication: Regular and Big Updates
The biggest advantage of starting to play Vintage Story right now is the insane devotion to the project of the developers. Unlike many other survival games, which stay in the development purgatory for years, Vintage Story gets regular and big updates, adding lots of content to the world. The small and dedicated dev team works in a healthy rhythm, expanding the world and its mechanics.
For instance, in the recently released major patch version 1.22, the developers added an entirely new fishing system with diverse aquatic life, advanced mechanical engineering that allows you to build moving systems such as windmills and waterwheels, and further improvements to the already great metalworking system. The game just keeps becoming better, deeper, and more polished.
Independent Distribution and Best Refund Policy
You may notice that you won't be able to buy Vintage Story through Steam itself. The developers made a bold decision and decided to use independent distribution, selling the game on their official website (as well as on storefronts like Humble and Itch.io). Thus, by refusing to use the corporate storefronts, the studio remains completely independent and is able to finance the constant development of the game by its enthusiastic community.
This independent approach also allows them to have complete control over the sales, and they fully utilize it, providing the most generous refund policy in the entire gaming industry. The studio offers refunds within 2 weeks after purchase or 10 hours of gameplay time, whichever comes first. No questions asked. You can buy the game, play it for a full weekend, and if eventually you think that hardcore mechanics are not for you, they will happily return your money. As they say themselves: "If you don't like our game, we don't want your money". It makes playing absolutely risk-free.
Ready to fight against temporal storms and carve your path through the wilderness? Buy your copy of Vintage Story right here!
Conclusion
Vintage Story is a masterpiece of the survival genre. It requires patience, planning, and respect towards the environment. If you are tired of easy survival mechanics and want to feel the taste of real victory created from making a copper pickaxe yourself, then you definitely should try this game. It is a slow burn, but the payoff is unlike anything else.