livingdeadguy89
It can be said that the apocalypse genre has been done to death, but that is only half true. While it’s been done often recently, it’s rarely done well, but when it is the experience is original. Enter Phosphor Games’ upcoming title, Nether, a game that appears to take the open-world setting of Day Z and adds a strong co-op element. They have found a healthy median, skirting the boundary between online multi-player and MMO it seems.
In the game an event referred to as “the cull” has caused a majority of the population to turn into supernatural monsters with homicidal tendencies, called “nethers”. Players must team up to complete tasks and survive against other players and the nethers. The game goes for a more immersive experience where the screen isn’t cluttered with numbers and information. To paint a picture, it’s similar to Left 4 Dead’s realism mode in concept.
The nature of the enemies is where co-op comes into play. The mutant enemies are blind, but have an acute sense of hearing which makes moving around difficult and fighting even just one an arduous task, since the sound of combat attracts more of them. What’s more difficult is that the enemies can teleport to your position to follow you once alerted, which is why you’ll have to find allies you can rely on.
What fans of Day Z and The Walking Dead know well is that if there’s one thing to fear more than monsters in the apocalypse, it’s the living. This translates into this game as anywhere outside the safe zone leaves you as open game to be murdered and looted, fairness is irrelevant. As the game is still in development it will be interesting to see what new and innovative ways they might explore this with, or if they’re attempting to challenge Day Z‘s top spot in the genre.
While no official price has been given the developers seemed to agree it would be within the $20-40 range when it hits Steam late this year, with early beta access coming soon.
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