Hello, my name is ColdBeer and this time I present my review of a survival action RPG
game Gatewalkers.
I have played the alpha version and was pleasantly surprised how cool and fresh this game is.
Let me start by saying that Gatewalkers is not a standard action hack and slash game
- it has strong survival element implemented.
And I should say that I’m not a fan of those things, I don’t find it cool that you must
drink water all the time.
I find that annoying routine that can be avoided by...
NOT including this in the game.
But alas, here you have to drink and eat all the time.
Just like in a real life.
I can hear you getting fatter.
Yeah.
Also you have to sleep, keep yourself warm by using fire and do many more survival things
in order to keep your tiny character alive.
Gatewalkers in general is a cooperative game where players travel across different worlds
in order to save their own.
Here you have to explore procedurally generated worlds, face hostile inhabitants, face various
challenges like extreme weather conditions, toxic or unbreathable atmosphere, terrifying
darkness, penetrating cold, and your mother-in-law.
Ok, maybe not the latter.
As a Gatewalker, one of the chosen few, you can go through the Gate and explore the worlds
that lay on the other side.
If you are in doubt, if this gate concept is literal rip-off from Stargate series, then
yes.
It’s the same.
In Lithuania we have a saying for situations like this, “tas pats bybis tik kitoj rankoj”,
meaning the same dick, just in a different hand.
Anyway, here you can team up with up to 3 other players and fight monsters, follow the
orders given by the Guild, and most importantly, die together from thirst.
Or lack of vodka.
Because I have found zero vodka in this game.
So far.
As I mentioned before, the world is procedurally generated, so you won’t find the same exact
environment twice.
Well, it’s like Diablo’s dungeons, where everything is the same, just the walls and
entrances are arranged differently every time you play.
Not that big of a deal, but nice touch in general.
Also in Gatewalkers you move by using WASD keys and mouse is controlling the attacks
and direction you are facing.
It really feels more personal that way, because you are actually controlling your character
instead of you clicking on the ground and watching how he’s trying to get to that
place on his own.
Although this kind of controlling feels a bit clunky.
Especially when your character moves like this all the time.
What is wrong with him?
He seems like he is running on a burning coals in slow motion.
Or when you are very drunk, but on the moon.
I don’t think that it is so extremely hard to make characters move a little bit more
realistic.
There are plenty of games that are nailing this kind of movement without any problems
and here it looks like they took a model from the assets store and just left it like it
was.
That is lame, I’m seriously hoping that they’ll will fix it, because, geez, your
character is the most important thing in the game, why do you leave it like this?
Anyway, here you have a base, much like in Stargate, except this is some ancient castle,
where you can go back between the missions and craft various materials.
Crafting is a huge part of the game.
Your hero doesn’t have any stat points you can assign, everything is based on your own
items and how much powerful they are.
So you spend a lot of time by searching for cool materials in dangerous worlds, then go
back to your base, melt some copper, make some thread, saw some planks et voila - a
new powerful weapon is in your hands.
Interesting thing about that is, that all your combat skills are tied not to you directly,
but to your weapon.
If you wield some sledgehammer you will get ability to bash or smash ground and stun enemies
like that, but if you equip magical staff you instantly become a wizard.
If you think that this is unrealistic, remember Harry Potter.
How much of the power he has without his wand?
Not much, huh?
So, when you equip staff here, you can instantly shoot magic bolts and other magic stuff from
it.
The more powerful staff is - the more powerful skills you have.
Also here, instead of a mana, your skills get cooldowns and you have to carefully plan
all your moves instead of spamming one button and drinking mana potions with the other.
In Gatewalkers everything can be crafted if you have a recipe.
And because the game is about survival, you can craft such stuff like gas masks, antidote
potions, warm clothes, capes, light sources of many kinds, and other things that you never
craft in any other action RPG game.
In example you can boil a soup from glowing fungi and when you consume it you start to
glow by yourself in a darkness and at night that helps you to keep your sanity intact.
So, as I mentioned, I’m sceptical about all that survival thing, I seldom play survival
games, because I just die from hunger or cold and then I just uninstall the game.
I’m too old for that, and also life in Eastern Europe is harsh by itself, I don’t need
any more of this in imaginary world.
But...
You know when I set my foot on an Ice World and started exploring, I finally understood
that surviving can be really fun.
I found out that I have to cut trees and collect stones to make a fireplace, otherwise I would
freeze to death, especially if blizzard comes.
So I started exploring the world and realized that I need much more fireplaces than I can
afford.
I started to put fires in strategic places, so I could go back in a case of blizzard or
in a case of slow hitting hypothermia.
And memorizing those places and then getting back to them, was a nice experience overall.
Although even by doing that I managed to die from cold a few times, because fireplace you
make is not eternal, it burns for a limited amount of time and then it goes off.
It is a desperate feeling when you, trembling with cold, go to your fireplace only to see
that it is not burning anymore.
Immediately there is a warning about upcoming blizzard and you instantly realize that if
you don’t make a fire you will quickly die.
And when you die you lose a lot of stuff in your inventory, so usually you will try to
avoid dying at all costs.
Desperate attempts to find materials for fire often resulted in my death, so later I learned
to make a lot of spare fireplaces and carry them with me, so I could put one down in a
case of an emergency.
See, even I can learn new things.
Also I like the battles with enemies a lot.
Despite of the controls being clunky for now, every encounter with stronger enemy, and majority
of them are stronger, is like a tiny fight against miniboss, where you have to avoid
his attacks and land precise blows of your own.
Stronger creatures can be hard to take down alone so you have to co-cop with your friends
to do that.
Monsters and various beasts are made quite well with original design not seen in other
games.
That is a huge plus from me.
Also I should mention that this game is not pure fantasy - it is a mix of sci-fi and fantasy
genres, because here you can explore ancient ruins filled with laser walls, battery cells,
teleportation devices and various guardian robots.
So, despite of me being a very sceptical about all this survival stuff, I was quite impressed
by this game and I can recommend Gatewalkers to anyone who likes a bit harder games and
has some friends.
You know that playing with strangers will not be as fun as it can be.
But if you like your hero to be actually strong demigod that hacks and slashes hordes of enemies
like butter, this game is not for you.
And that is OK, there are plenty of other games for you to try.
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And now have a nice day and I’ll see you next time, bye.