Survarium open beta and North American servers arrive this week(Free MMO)

[tal onzy]

The very Stalker-like online shooter Survarium has actually been in open beta for awhile now, but gamers on this side of the pond have been hobbled by the fact that the servers were all located in Europe and Russia. That situation is about to change, however, as Vostok Games has announced that the beta will arrive on Steam Early Access on April 2, and that servers based in North America will be rolled out at the same time.

The beta version of Survarium includes only the PvP portion of the game, which Vostok said allows it to work on the engine stability and mechanics in a relatively simple environment. "However, this is not to say that this is all we have planned for the game," it explained in the announcement of the looming Early Access release. "No doubt many of you are awaiting the much anticipated Freeplay mode, also referred to as PvE. This mode is in development. So please do not make the mistake in thinking that Survarium is just an PvP shooter. We have extremely ambitious plans for the future of the game and with your help, we can achieve them."

Three Steam-exclusive starter packs will be available for a limited time following the Early Access launch, which is planned to go live at 1 pm PDT. In the meantime, you can find out more about Survarium's Freeplay mode (which is the part of the game that most interests me, because it sounds like multiplayer Stalker)
Title: Survarium
Genre:Action, Free to Play, Massively Multiplayer,RPG
Release Date: Apr 2, 2015
http://store.steampowered.com/app/355840/?snr=1_7_15__13

 

[tal onzy]

Christopher Livingston- PC Gamer
An hour with Survarium: guns, anomalies, and bear traps
Survarium, a multiplayer FPS by Vostok Games, and a game I have to check the spelling of every single time I type it,arrived on Steam this Thursday in early beta. As a longtime enthusiast of the Stalker series , I naturally wanted to check it out as soon as I could. Right now, there's only a team deathmatch mode available, with other modes like Freeplay PvE and co-op modes planned for the future.

In the hour or so I played, my high point was when I killed a guy with a bear trap. My low point happened a few moments earlier, when I killed myself with a bear trap.

My mother always said I'd die in my own bear trap in post-apocalypse Russia.
You begin with your choice of either a mosin rifle or submachine gun, and a pistol, and the matchmaking system attempts to find you a suitable server (in this case, one with a bunch of other fresh players). Team deathmatches take place in the sort of bleak environments you'd expect: scarred landscapes with crumbling rock walls, ruined buildings, abandoned tanks, and overgrown vegetation. The guns are loud and startling and bullets quickly shred you to pieces. It's the sort of quick-death scenario that should inspire slow and careful advances through the map and tactical cooperation with other players on your team, but honestly, right now, everyone is just running at top speed all over the map and shooting each other in the face.

Being free-to-play, there's naturally a whole lotta rigmarole between matches, where you take the money you've earned in the round and browse through the shop to see what you can afford, and if you've gained a level you can pick from available skill modifiers. You're allowed three profiles you can switch between during a match: for instance, you can equip one profile with a mosin for long range combat and another with a shotgun for close range, and swap them while waiting to respawn.

No diet sausage?
You can also purchase other items like protective gear, bandages, grenades, and the bear traps I mentioned earlier. You also may be awarded gear after a match to add to your arsenal.

I bought two bear traps, because how can you not buy bear traps in a video game? One I walked into myself while I was trying to figure out how to place it. The other I set down on a narrow trail and backed away from, and about three minutes later I got a notification when some poor dope on the other team wandered into it. It was pretty great. For me, I mean.

Anomalies will kill you faster than any bullet.
The game looks pretty good. The character models are fairly plain and the animations aren't particularly well done, but I like the look and atmosphere of world itself. None of it really feels like a Stalker game, except for the anomalous areas of the map, which are extremely hazardous to blunder into and made me wish I could stop the match, shoulder my rifle, get out an artifact detector, and hunt for a Mama's Beads or a Meat Chunk or a Stone Blood. Y'know?

Sigh. I think I'm gonna have to play Stalker this weekend.

The maps themselves aren't designed particularly well for team deathmatch, though. If one team pushes in far enough, they'll basically swarm the other end and just spawnkill everyone, and the match timers feel a bit too long. Still, I had a decent time with it, plus it's free and you can use your Steam account in place of filling out a registration form, so there's that. Like most, I'm far more interested in the upcoming Freeplay mode, but Survarium's deathmatch is fun enough in small doses while we wait.