Deadcraft review

In Deadcraft, survival of the fittest entails a half-undead protagonist cultivating a gun-toting legion of the dead. While combat is a bit clunky, a capable script and a satisfying sense of progression means this title isn’t dead on arrival.

Marvelous’ Harvest Moon and spin-off series Rune Factory have offered downright adorable agrarian simulations. With the release of Deadcraft, Marvelous subsidiary First Studio, creators of DAEMON X MACHINA and Fate/Extella Link, have completely stripped the genre of all cuteness.  Here, the focus is not on managing the family farm, living a peaceful existence, and potentially finding a partner. Instead, you’ll be eating charred rats, building makeshift weapons, and merely trying to survive in a world overrun by zombies (nicknamed Zivs) and bloodthirsty bandits. Also, important to know: you’ll be watering crops with zombie blood.

But first, know that Deadcraft isn’t a thoroughly polished title. When locked onto enemies, the overhead perspective spins and jerks about, attempting to framing the action.  Balance can be another issue at times. As you strive to make progress by salvaging resources for crafting, its can be frustrating to contend with variables like hunger, thirst, and energy. The latter is especially vexing, habitually requiring long treks back home.  As a half-zombie, you’ll struggle with keeping your undead inclinations in check, or else NPCs will open fire on a lurching, inarticulate ghoul. But stick with the game, and acquired skills will remedy some of the frustrations, allowing you to appreciate the game’s gallows humor. Eventually, you can even grow your own zombie army by planting human bodies and Ziv hearts in the soil.

Yes, there’s a small catalog of irritating qualities. But I also found myself ensnared with Deadcraft’s core gameplay loop. At present, I’m even considering buying a Switch version so I can zombiecraft on the go.

When There’s No More Room in Hell…

While Deadcraft favors action and management over exposition, the game does express two interconnected stories. The first explains the game’s dystopian setting, where a meteor storm obliterates humanity. But crashing comets weren’t the only peril. Some of the meteors carried a horrific virus that resurrected the dead. Much like George A. Romero’s scripts, the undead aren’t the only menace, but scarce resources have turned the remaining humans into cutthroat beasts just as bad as any brain-eater. Deadcraft imagines a world maintained by rusting scrap and those who persist often commit some heinous acts.

The game’s other plotline is an archetypal revenge tale. At the beginning of the game, half-zombie Reid is captured by a man named Nebron. Sensing the potential in exploiting Reid’s undead half, the leader aims to harness the power of zombie hybridity. While Reid’s primary goal is persistence, it’s clear that killing Nebron and bringing a halt to his plans provides the game with a clear impetus.

With partially voiced dialog, Deadcraft fares a bit better than its peers when it comes to bring NPCs to life. These characters extend the archetypal errands, often providing a bit of backstory in the process. These anecdotes aren’t always rousing, but they are a cut above the unremarkable chatter of most survival sims.

Enlisting for an Army of the Dead

Like most survival games, you’ll begin Deadcraft with little more than an axe. Yes, you’ll eventually use found resources to build better offensive tools such as knives, guns, and bazooka-wielding Zivs. Appropriately, persistence is strenuous at first. You’ll be caring for Reid like a Tamagotchi, providing food, water, and sleep to offset starvation, dehydration, and exhaustion.

Smartly, staying alive not just a process of routinely consuming items. Instead, there are a multitude of balances to contend with. So, while eating foul food might temporarily quell your appetite, it will also impair your health. Go to bed on an empty stomach and you’ll awaken the next day to a shortened energy meter. Later, growing your own zombie chow provides benefits, but you’ll also face consequences, with fellow humans attacking you or at the least, shunning interaction.

Progress Faster than a Lumbering Corpse

Before being able to craft most weapons and tools, you’ll need to unlock each proficiency from Deadcraft’s sizable tech tree. Fortunately, the currency used to finance post-armageddon education is plentiful, with almost every resource gathering and fight rewarding players with points. As such, grinding in the game isn’t as monotonous as most survival games. But it is gradual enough to ensure that you appreciate each new device or skill. Soon, you’ll be able to slow those nagging basic needs, allowing you to accomplish more during each day and not have to head back home as often. Be warned that is it possible to overgrind, taking much of the challenge from the game.

Combat isn’t especially engaging. Initially, you’ll be forced cleave away at the Zivs with dull tools. Not only does it take quite a few hits to kill a zombie, there’s little nuance to melee-based battles. The undead tumble after a few hits, but you’re not able to execute them or strike them as they are getting back up. Yes, once you get ranged firearms things fare better, but munitions use resources. If you’re miserly like me, you’ll probably stick with blunt and blade-based weapons. Boss battles were especially egregious. While having multiple methods to eliminate elevated enemies is usually beneficial, my usual approach was chipping down their health with a long-range weapon. As such, these showdowns were a bit tedious. Even the final battle was a pushover.

The other alternative is to harness your ability as a half-ziv. Beyond a shield, you can turn use your zombified arm as a massive, elongating weapon. Deadcraft strives to make players balance their living and undead sides with the former having better defensive abilities. But much of the fun comes from harnessing your Ziv abilities. It’s a bit unfortunate that there’s not more of them, though. Reid’s arm attack reminded me of Radical Entertainment’s Prototype games. But those titles provided a plethora of character-enhancing abilities, permitting players to nurture their own character. Regretfully, that’s not the case here.

Conclusion

Often, I’m indifferent toward survival games. While the core concept has potential, the laborious grind for materials often takes too long to earn dividends. However, that’s not the case with Deadcraft, which offers a trickle or tools, skills, and abilities to offset the drudgery. Fortunately, there’s a two-hour demo on all system that reveals many of the game’s facets and even flaws. If you’re OK with serviceable combat in a survival sim, Deadcraft can deliver a solid 20-25 hours of Ziv-growing gratification.

Deadcraft was played on PC with review
code provided by the publisher.