With Once Human, the survival-crafting-MMORPG, making its way to consoles, now is as good a time as any to step back into the ever-expanding world of body horror, grotesquery, survival, farming, and more. I was lucky enough to receive an invite for the Early Access period leading up to the release date, so I jumped back in to see how things have changed and what Once Human still has going for itself.
First of all, it’s been two years since I originally reviewed Once Human, and a lot of what I said then still holds true. I still recognize the landscape and monsters therein, and found long-forgotten detestation for the long-running distance between objectives before I was able to get a mode of transport (it was a bicycle, so even then, I wasn’t breaking any land speed records today). A lot of the good remains, with some healthy updates, which I’ll get into here.
For the uninitiated, Once Human is a survival/MMORPG/building/crafting gelatinous blob that lets you walk about the landscape, cutting down trees, mining various ores, picking berries, and shooting cosmic monstrosities to pieces. An alien substance called Stardust has taken over the planet and turned bits of the population and landscape into the previously mentioned cosmic monstrosities. You can do this by crafting weapons to take on the enemies du jour, building yourself a home of modest stature (or extravagance if you like), and cooking your own meals to keep your health and hydration levels at acceptable levels.
For the console release, the biggest thing I was concerned about was not being able to move my PC game over to the PS5, which would mean restarting from scratch or staying on PC. Thankfully, Once Human will implement day-one cross-play across all platforms (PS5, XBOX, PC and mobile) as well as account syncing.
“…it’s been two years since I reviewed Once Human originally, and a lot of what I said in that review remains the same now.”
Also, for the console release, Once Human will let players switch between first- and third-person perspective at any time. There were absolutely moments during my time in Early Access when I wanted to experience first-person mode, and they all happened to be when I was doing some sort of screen-capturing, oddly enough. I liked the actual gameplay in first-person but preferred third-person because it allowed me to see where I was in the space, and made sure I wasn’t about to be accosted by the now-recurring cosmic monstrosity at my back. Having built my home on top of a cliff, I had ample opportunity to take some gorgeous landscape shots in first-person view, but I just don’t necessarily see myself using it regularly.
One of the biggest things with console releases of PC games is graphical capability and how that transfers to consoles. Well, Once Human has that covered as well, with three different graphics modes to choose from, depending on your console setup: Performance Mode, which lowers graphics quality and resolution to deliver a staggering 120 fps; Balance Mode, which also lowers resolution to maintain 90 fps; and lastly, Quality Mode, which maintains a high resolution and limits the frame rate to 60 fps. My preference, as with most games that offer it, is Quality Mode; 60fps is all I need and if it looks awesome as a result, then even better.
As far as gameplay is concerned, there isn’t a whole lot different from the PC release a couple of years ago. You still have to keep at least 1.5 of your eyes on your hydration and hunger to make sure they aren’t dropping to levels that make your bag of peanuts in your pocket suddenly turn into a bag of bricks. I will say that building my house on a PS5 controller is a new type of headache I could have gone without, as snapping to build points would be more intuitive with a shotgun, but once you get used to it, it’s still pretty user-unfriendly.
“I still highly recommend playing Once Human as there really is something for everyone, whether it’s shooting, looting, farming & resource management, or building a home.”
By now, you’re probably sat there thinking this all sounds good, but how much is the game going to cost? Well, Once Human will cost you exactly $0. It’s entirely free-to-play and will remain so on console as it was on PC, so there is literally no downside to trying out one of the most unique survival/MMORPG/open-world games of the last few years. Don’t get me wrong: there are paid cosmetic options aplenty, as well as other paid content to consider, but you absolutely don’t need to buy any of it if you don’t want to.
I still highly recommend playing Once Human as there really is something for everyone, whether it’s shooting, looting, farming & resource management, or building a home. You might just have a bit of fun as well, as some of the enemies are downright mind-boggling when you wonder how the devs came up with what’s in front of you.
The console release of Once Human will be out on Tuesday, August 25th for both PlayStation 5 and XBOX Series X|S.
