TLDR: Game is great, and an easy recommendation for people who are looking for a fresh take on the Survival Crafting Open World genre. Agoraphobics will love this one, Claustrophobics are gonna despise it! HL1, Project Zomboid, and Grounded, essentially.

I don't typically write reviews often, but I have to 'chuck one over' when a game has personally affected me in a delightfully positive, or horrendously negative way. Judging by the thumbs up, you can guess which of the two it may be.

This game.... is something absurdly unique. After a somewhat slow start, the hook really grabs you and never lets go. In where the market can be saturated in Open World Survival Crafting games in past, and now making another recurrence in the present, this games does something very special with it's recipe the head chefs are sampling.

To be frank I love almost every 'Open World Survival Crafting' game that has come out that isn't a complete asset flip or otherwise. V-Rising 1.0 is releasing tomorrow, one of my all-time-favorite, and there's a lot of credit to give to Enshrouded as well. They kind of share the same Open-Ended agoraphobic's worst nightmare open worlds, which is great! I love the specific progressions in those games, leveled areas and only a soft amount of farming...

THE CONCEPT- Now comes in a unique game of it's kind, Abiotic Factor. The concept is simple, a merger of Project Zomboid's skill progression (tuneable), Half-life 1 aesthetic and setting, and a crafting system that likes to cross the gap between somewhat complex and grounded to simple and charming (Grounded!).
In a survival game where the whole open world is derived of a underground facility (with some linear 'dungeon-like dimensions') You would expect a facility to get boring, walking the same place to farm some materials like IKEA desks and your grandma's computer system, but it's the progression of the facility that makes it flourish and interesting right when you are edging on boredom, again hooking you to explore more... And speaking on IKEA desks and farming...

THE GRIND- Huh... What can I compare the grind in this game to? It's about as you'd expect in any survival open-world crafting game, go to XYZ to get XYZ, some places grant specifically more XYZ. But it's the simplicity and the QoL of the grind that makes it... engaging enough. I don't look at a recipe (at least not yet) that makes me go '...♥♥♥♥, this is going to take an afternoon...' and the crafting bench and the UI have the best QoL. Two major examples.
-
You can pin recipes in your crafting section that makes anything you are looking for have a yellow backdrop, and also puts it to the top right of your screen
and
You can unlock a relatively early upgrade for your bench that can drag from other storage devices (ANY storage).

These devices is what makes grinding not a headache, and engaging enough to the point you can just do it without feeling like the game is pushing against you.

THE CONTENT- Well. There's a ♥♥♥♥ load. More than I would expect, seemingly more than almost any other game I've played that has it's first release into an Early Access. I'm 12.8 hours in at the time of writing, and I still feel like there's at least 10-15 more hours of content before the game starts to reach it's end. Taking it slow is the best means of enjoying a game like this. There is much to explore, a lot of secrets, quite a varied enemy pool (for a fresh EA). You can build almost... Anywhere. Almost being, literally, you can build as far as I know, ANYWHERE. Power isn't too hard to come by (even in some dimensions) although I think some dimensions have no access to power.

WORLD PROGRESSION- You ever play Terraria? Yeah. It seems like this is the same, but the Hard-mode is far more subtle and stretched out. New enemies appear, wandering the facility when you make progression to the story. The world itself (as far as I know) doesn't change too much, but the threats definitely do.

ACTUAL PROGRESSION- This is what makes it Half-life 1 to me, in a lot of ways. Or Dark Souls, I suppose? Locked areas that can only be unlocked from one side, some areas that require you to get creative and think outside the box or you'll miss them entirely (...looking at you, fan blade). Opening different departments by going a specific way and cycling around like a Valve Game. The progression is... Fairly linear, but enjoyable. And the moments that shine in the 'Openness of the facility' shine with what you can do outside of progression. Fortify a room base, set up traps, make weapons. A lot of weapons. You can build... A LOT. And you can also take furniture from other departments to put in your base. Fun!

I actually don't know what else to write about at this moment before my work shift. This game is great, it has some downsides but not enough for me to even mention them as I personally haven't seen any gnarly bugs. One quip would be, the performance. Man is it good, but also can be bad at times when loading new areas. Not a problem on my PC, but when loading up a new area you will feel it guaranteed.

At this point in Early Access, I solidly recommend it to anyone looking for a fresh take on the genre. It deserves it's rating, especially being so... new to it's release on Steam. You don't see an Overwhelmingly Positive on an EA game often. This is that occasional one.

TLDR: Game is great, and an easy recommendation for people who are looking for a fresh take on the Survival Crafting Open World genre. Agoraphobics will love this one, Claustrophobics are gonna despise it! HL1, Project Zomboid, and Grounded, essentially. I don't typically write reviews often, but I have to 'chuck one over' when a game has personally affected me in a delightfully positive, or horrendously negative way. Judging by the thumbs up, you can guess which of the two it may be. This game.... is something absurdly unique. After a somewhat slow start, the hook really grabs you and never lets go. In where the market can be saturated in Open World Survival Crafting games in past, and now making another recurrence in the present, this games does something very special with it's recipe the head chefs are sampling. [i]To be frank I love almost every 'Open World Survival Crafting' game that has come out that isn't a complete asset flip or otherwise. V-Rising 1.0 is releasing tomorrow, one of my all-time-favorite, and there's a lot of credit to give to Enshrouded as well. They kind of share the same Open-Ended agoraphobic's worst nightmare open worlds, which is great! I love the specific progressions in those games, leveled areas and only a soft amount of farming...[/i] [b] THE CONCEPT-[/b] Now comes in a unique game of it's kind, [b]Abiotic Factor[/b]. The concept is simple, a merger of Project Zomboid's skill progression (tuneable), Half-life 1 aesthetic and setting, and a crafting system that likes to cross the gap between somewhat complex and grounded to simple and charming (Grounded!). In a survival game where the whole open world is derived of a underground facility (with some linear 'dungeon-like dimensions') You would expect a facility to get boring, walking the same place to farm some materials like IKEA desks and your grandma's computer system, but it's the progression of the facility that makes it flourish and interesting right when you are edging on boredom, again hooking you to explore more... And speaking on IKEA desks and farming... [b] THE GRIND-[/b] Huh... What can I compare the grind in this game to? It's about as you'd expect in any survival open-world crafting game, go to XYZ to get XYZ, some places grant specifically more XYZ. But it's the simplicity and the QoL of the grind that makes it... engaging enough. I don't look at a recipe (at least not yet) that makes me go '...fuck, this is going to take an afternoon...' and the crafting bench and the UI have [b]the[/b] best QoL. Two major examples. - You can pin recipes in your crafting section that makes anything you are looking for have a yellow backdrop, and also puts it to the top right of your screen [i]and[/i] You can unlock a relatively early upgrade for your bench that can drag from other storage devices (ANY storage). These devices is what makes grinding not a headache, and engaging enough to the point you can just do it without feeling like the game is pushing against you. [b] THE CONTENT-[/b] Well. There's a shit load. More than I would expect, seemingly more than almost any other game I've played that has it's first release into an Early Access. I'm 12.8 hours in at the time of writing, and I still feel like there's at least 10-15 more hours of content before the game starts to reach it's end. Taking it slow is the best means of enjoying a game like this. There is much to explore, a lot of secrets, quite a varied enemy pool (for a fresh EA). You can build almost... Anywhere. Almost being, literally, you can build as far as I know, ANYWHERE. Power isn't too hard to come by (even in some dimensions) although I think some dimensions have no access to power. [b] WORLD PROGRESSION- [/b] You ever play Terraria? Yeah. It seems like this is the same, but the Hard-mode is far more subtle and stretched out. New enemies appear, wandering the facility when you make progression to the story. The world itself (as far as I know) doesn't change too much, but the threats definitely do. [b] ACTUAL PROGRESSION- [/b] This is what makes it Half-life 1 to me, in a lot of ways. Or Dark Souls, I suppose? Locked areas that can only be unlocked from one side, some areas that require you to get creative and think outside the box or you'll miss them entirely (...looking at you, fan blade). Opening different departments by going a specific way and cycling around like a Valve Game. The progression is... Fairly linear, but enjoyable. And the moments that shine in the 'Openness of the facility' shine with what you can do outside of progression. Fortify a room base, set up traps, make weapons. A lot of weapons. You can build... A LOT. And you can also take furniture from other departments to put in your base. Fun! I actually don't know what else to write about at this moment before my work shift. This game is great, it has some downsides but not enough for me to even mention them as I personally haven't seen any gnarly bugs. One quip would be, the performance. Man is it good, but also can be bad at times when loading new areas. Not a problem on my PC, but when loading up a new area you will feel it guaranteed. At this point in Early Access, I solidly recommend it to anyone looking for a fresh take on the genre. It deserves it's rating, especially being so... new to it's release on Steam. You don't see an Overwhelmingly Positive on an EA game often. This is that occasional one.