Skye is a hyper-realistic survival game set on the Isle of Skye during the Viking period. Washed ashore you will fight both the elements and the island’s natural predators for survival in a bid to find out how you came to be upon its shores.
Game Details
Developer: Aurora Game Studios
Platforms: Steam
Link: Website (additional social media accounts linked to website)
Release Date: Pre-Alpha access to Paypal backers planned Q1-Q2 2022.
Status: In development
Planned Features
- ​Single-player and multiplayer PvE and, at a later date, PvP experience
- A large variety of crafting equipment, including weapons, tools, furniture and clothing
- Three tier building system, ‘basic’, ‘modular’ and ‘large scale settlements’
- Upgrade system for structures and craftable items
- Highly interactive environment with harvestable trees, stone to mine and much, much more
- Detailed survival system including food, water, health and endurance, amongst others
- Cooking
- Farming
- Trade, do jobs or pillage settlements
- Taming system for creatures
- Fully dynamic day/night cycle and realistic changing weather conditions
- Temperature changes based on time of day, elevation, season and current clothing
- Beautiful handcrafted 256 square kilometre landscape with state-of-the-art next-gen graphics
- Realistic wildlife that incorporates a complex interconnected ecosystem with a large variety of different animals such as wolves, deer, rabbits, pigs and others
Visuals
Game Bytes:
- One of the perks of backing is access to the game at various stages of development (Alpha, Pre-Alpha, etc.) (Website)
- PvP is on the table. In single player mode it’s planned as more of a survival sandbox/story experience, but multiplayer apparently will include PvP. There’s not been a lot of detail that I can scrounge on this from the various information sources I sorted, beyond that PvP would be farther down the development path.
- Aurora Game Studios, in social media responses to community members, has mentioned several times that they plan to be in talks with porting companies about getting the game onto consoles.
- The developer has decided to forgo the normal Kickstarter funding path, opting instead for a PayPal driven direct donation model that can be found on the website.
My Thoughts. (Updated 3/15/22)
I like; I love the looks-if you have eyeballs you can see that the screenshots and the video are of fantastic quality. Survival is all about immersion and the quality of the world -the look of the sticks and stones, or the shadows through the trees- is important. I’m also down with all of the intended features. But honestly, many survival sandbox (even those that include NPC management, like this one plans) share many of the same core mechanics/setup on paper. Execution and actual game-play will always matter more than a beautiful screenshot. Cyberpunk can probably talk more about this!
The only thing that jumps out at me from the list would be “complex interconnected ecosystem”. For all that it’s not a survival game, I’ve viewed Red Dead Redemption 2 as the pinnacle of this type of animal AI behavior. You could literally observe the wildlife wander, engage each other, react to the environment, etc. Love it.
Worrisome; I’ve got nothing against backing indie titles- whether it’s through Early Access, or even before there’s much to see/experience, like through Kickstarter. Personally I think it’s a little odd to forgo Kickstarter (or a similar platform) for just flat out sending funds through PayPal. Kickstarter does offer some protections to both parties in the transaction. PayPal has demonstrably protected the buyer more often than “the seller”- and I would be worried about folks “clawing back” payments if he takes time, if it’s not to their liking, etc. I get where they’re going on wanting it to be very much a “community funded” project, but I do like the accountability of funding that something like Indiegogo or Kickstarter can supply- you can see the amount raised, you can see stretch goals reached, etc. Here it’s just kinda throwing money into the void. Hopefully they don’t experience any issues!
Assuming they don’t close off the paid access to the (Pre?) Alpha tier once it’s actually released, I’d prolly toss some cash into the pot at that point to try it out. Till then, it’s definitely a gorgeous game to keep an eye on.
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Retreat to Enen