After the rapid rise but also rapid fall of Apex Legends, we haven't seen a class-based futuristic battle royale game to create the same wave as EA has done. However, Darwin Project will turn the whole scene over, as it doesn't only feature eyes-popping visuals but also intriguing survival-battle-royale hybrid gameplay.
The game was launched for Steam Early Access for quite a while, but the lack of marketing has caused Darwin Project to stay under the radar until now. The developer and publisher Scavengers Studio is very excited to announce that the game will make a jump out of its Early Access state soon, and will come to the public officially in January 2020.
Below is the trailer for this announcement, which you can have a look to see the similarities of this game with Apex Legends and Fortnite:
The settings of Darwin Project
Darwin Project puts you into the wild snowy landscape of Northern Canadia, where you take part in a researching project namely Darwin Project. It's an effort from government to pre-emptively preparing for the upcoming Ice Age, and it has invited 10 participants to join in for half-scientific and half-entertaining reasons.
Your task is to challenge your surviving skills in the severely cold land of Canadia while competing with other survivalists to death in dangerous areas. I don't know what is entertaining about the battle of life-and-death, but we can question that later. Now, it's time to dive into the dystopian battles!
Special features
The announcement trailer doesn't give you much information on the game's action on the battlefield, but you can easily find people's experience on Youtube. Basically, it's a splendid mixture of Fortnite and Apex Legends, letting you control your character from the third-person perspective, and but features gear-base character class systems. That class system is not available at this moment but will come with the full launch of the game.
You'll have to chop down trees, but not for the sake of building, but to burn it for warmth in tor survive in the freezing atmosphere of Northern Canadian. At the same time, you'll also have to keep an eye for looting and fighting as well, as you may encounter other 9 players at any time. In short, you'll not only have to survive against the players, but also the environments.
That's the ordinary things that a battle royale game should have, but here are the special parts. Specifically, you can enjoy the entertaining battles of Darwin Project not only in the role of the participants, but also the role of the spectators or the show director as well.
Let's talk about the spectator first. You're the watcher finding entertainment through this survival show, and you can indirectly lay impacts on the battles using your money and rights. To be more specific, the spectators will vote for a power that the Show Director can use to add to the battle and place money to bet for whoever they think to be the last survival.
However, the Show Director is the one that can directly influence the battles. Stepping in this role, you'll be able to put unexpected factors to the battlegrounds, including gravity storm, high-damage nuclear bombings, or control the arena closures. How you affect the battles will decide how the Spectator will bet and vote, and it's a great chance to experience the role of a game show host.
Overall, Darwin Project provides a lot of new features to the saturated battle royale genre, and pose a lot of potential both as a game for normal online play and a game for eSports events.
Release date and supported platforms
Darwin Project is still under Steam Early Access for PC and Xbox Game Preview now, but will jump to its official state in January 2020.
At this launch, it will add PS4 to its support list, but whether cross-play support will be available is yet to be announced.