Under the Sand has so little content it's honestly surprising to me that this game is NOT in early access AND ALSO is 4 years old. There's promise of a huge update with customizable characters, weather conditions, and a bunch of other content as recently as April 21, 2024... but Under the Sand needs a LOT of work before I'd recommend it.

I think the best way to explain is to walk through my experience. You wake up in a trailer and build cars from a junkyard. It's not customizable. Each cars doors are specific to them. The building process is somewhat similar to Jalopy; the big parts fit together like puzzle pieces and you have to feed them resources (water, oil, gasoline) and also give yourself resources (food, water, sleep). The parts themselves eventually wear out and you can buy better ones.

Once the car is done, I buy some extra gas and water then hit the road down a desert highway. 5 minutes down the road I see an abandoned 1950s diner. There's some canned food inside. I take everything and my truck bed is nearly overflowing with food.

10 minutes pass. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing. There's no story. No goal. I'm just driving down a road. Finally, There's a fork in the road and a highway sign. "LEFT for FARMVILLE" or "RIGHT FOR ROUTE 6" I go to Farmville.

Another 5 minutes pass and I've put on a YouTube video in the background. Worst case, this can be a podcast game. I hit a military checkpoint with a locked gate. There's nothing to loot here, just a few pieces of scenery. I open the gate, prompting a loading screen. The door opens to a wide unpaved road.

I drive for another 5 minutes. My sleep meter says I need to rest soon. I see a family ranch by the side of the road. They have some more canned food and a place to sleep. The place is completely lifeless. There's no animals. No other cars. The only life in this world is the occassional NPC shopkeepers.

Finally, I drive down a desert dirt road for 15 minutes. Nothing is happening. I don't see anything. I know this is supposed to be a relaxing game, but it plays more like Desert Bus. It's a distraction that you need to occassionally interact with to keep going. But there's no goal. No story. No gameplay other than waiting for buildings to appear so you can scavenge them.

I start thinking to myself... How did this happen? How has this game had 4 years of updates and it plays like an alpha proof of concept?

Finally, I see a shop on the side of the road. They have 2 off-road tires for sale. I sell my current tires... for far less than the value of the off-road tires. There's no way to buy back the things I sold. After selling all four tires, I sell everything in my trunk and have enough to buy 1 of the tires. I now have a car that doesn't have wheels. I click pause and "end trip." It's a new day. The car and I teleport back to the trailer.

Under the Sand is an empty, apocalyptic groundhogs day. Maybe the 5 year anniversary update will make it a better experience, but I won't be around to see it. I'm getting a refund.