Survarium — bad service game with big potential.

Kirill Zenenko
5 min readSep 26, 2020

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After reading this article, I wanted to write my thoughts about the game.

Everything is written in the format of an appeal to the game developers.

I have a question for the whole company. What were you thinking about? That players who hear the words “pvp from the creators of Stalker” or “pvp in apocalypse setting” will bring you billions? From what I read, this is how it was.

The game in passive management is a priori dead.

Little content.

There is simply nothing to do in the game.

  • New weapon? There are many of them and all of the same type.
  • New location? Okay. But there are few players on it.
  • PVE mission? Only one. And it was released in 2017!

Where’s the rest? Where are the Coil and Rattle artifacts in the end?

Events.

You tell about events as an achievement. Maybe from a technical point of view, this is really difficult. However, you should understand that this does not bother anyone. The result is more important.

In fact, 2 types of events are used. Only the wrapper changes.

And what we have now, to put it mildly, is nothing.

Clan wars.

Where are the clan wars with the world map? You removed the battles. Where are they now?

Premium items.

Your donation is some kind of crazy survivor’s nightmare. Why is it so bright? Are we going to a party? And the fact that the greenery around does not bother you at all?

Terminator

Even if I have all the money in the world, and you make a 90% discount, I will not buy this thing.

About the site.

It does not show the main idea of the game. The last one was more suitable.

Current
Old

Gameplay degradation.

There was the mechanic of shooting down the sight. This is certainly a matter of taste, but the mechanic was interesting.

Anomalies… So much has been said about them, so many plans and hopes… From something big with interesting and unique mechanics, they turned into balls that inflict damage. You can protect yourself from all types with a balloon. And it doesn’t matter if one causes damage by radiation.

Balls

Do you remember the explosion when shot in the basement of the School? This was interesting.

The best moment of the CBT.

Little things.

Drawn laser sight is, of course, something new in shooters. There is nothing to say.

Drawn in Paint

The Sponge and the scanner still have the animation of the grenade pulling the pin out. This is both funny and sad.

Sponge-grenade
Scanner-grenade

Problems with the engine?

If everything depends on the development of the engine, then maybe it makes sense to send it to rest? I understand that you invested many forces into its creation. But if you make the next games on UE4, and the Vostok Engine, apparently, can’t launch the Storm, then is this not a signal for a funeral?

Crytek is still rewriting CryEngine. They clearly have more resources than you. If they have problems, you will have no less of them.

Attitude to the community.

What your head Ruslan Didenko said about the community and especially the “oldies” deserves a separate discussion. Let’s talk about monthly “answers to questions”. I see you are making it for English speaking players only. I heard that the reason for ignoring the Russian players is their toxicity. Did I understand your position correctly? Ignore a whole layer of players simply because they criticize you harshly and are always unhappy. You are the first company in my memory who does this.

When you make an online game, you have to talk to everyone. If players always write harsh criticism, then there is a reason. Nobody needs your grievances and tears.

Project pitching for players.

Shortly your game can be described as “Shooter with anomalies on apocalyptic maps.” There are many shooters. So far, only the setting saves you.

Apocalypse is…

Most people love the apocalypse with the opportunity to immerse themselves in a ruined world. Therefore, you should focus on the lore and the plot. In your case PVE. PVP should be just a nice addition.

The final of your article is as if you were going to let the grass grow under one’s feet. But as you know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease (This is only about Survarium, not about your other games).

I say this because little has changed in the game in recent years. One new location recently is good. But this is not enough. The rest, either cosmetics for a couple of minutes, or balance. So it turns out that a lot of work seems to have been done, but it feels like you are marking time.

Most likely, you will ignore what was written and will be convinced that you know better how to develop the game, and you will call me another hater. But the trouble is that I used to stand up for you.

Adios…

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