The Darwin Project E3 2017 Impressions

The Darwin Project was probably my favorite digital title at the Xbox area in E3 this year being a simple, yet fun game. The general theme is that of a sports event where players compete against one another to the death. There are however some more interesting aspects to this as a layer of survival is in place. You'll have to craft items while battling such as fires to keep warm or traps to assist in catching others. These essential aspects don't take away from the core focus and the pace of the multiplayer still felt solid. An announcer is also present to keep the action going and it works well for the game. The match started off with my character spawning in a random area of the map and then I had to go find others while grabbing supplies.

My developer guide suggested going off for some wood to get a quick fire going, but I mainly wanted to kill my close opponent. The screens are right beside each other so you can screen peek rather easily. I had thought this would be easy with my mighty axe, but I didn't account for warmth and needed to get some heat before striking. This turned into an event of slowly stalking prey while not being seen around some tents. I threw together a fire before attacking silently and was lucky to get the advantage.


What I didn't expect was how dynamic the houses were as one could slide through windows in them. I didn't necessarily expect that and the fight turned into madness. There was still a chase though others had joined in to make it one of those wild combative situations. It was an enjoyable match of combat and I can see this being another competitive multiplayer game that will fit right in on the platform. It's different enough to be unique and I liked that there was something more to it than us just slashing away at one another. We had to actually survive for awhile and then create traps if we'd like a further advantage.

It's all about collecting supplies from the environment or others and then using those tools for survival. I enjoyed the visuals as well finding them distinct and the area felt large in scale. The demo was in 4k resolution though I can't quite recall what the frame rate was or if it was mentioned, this will be a game that's optimized for Xbox One X. I also find the setting rather hilarious as it takes place within a dystopian post-apocalyptic landscape in the Northern Canadian Rockies. This particular region is where I reside and could totally see this sort of thing happening here in those freezing winters.

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