At gamescom 2022, Rooted shows its first short trailer. But what is the survival game actually about, and does it offer more than just pretty graphics?
With its impressive graphics and big ambitions, the survival game Rooted is immediately reminiscent of another project currently in development, namely The Day Before. The latter also has big plans that are almost too good to be true, but is being created under questionable circumstances.
While we know very little about The Day Before, Rooted as a (Kickstarter project) already reveals much more details to its future players. What Rooted wants to offer and whether this is realistic at all, you can find out here.
This is what Rooted looks like
At the Future Games Show, the survival game showed a first trailer, where we can admire especially the fancy graphics in Unreal Engine 5. In addition, the game scenes reveal background information about the setting and story of the game and show the base building. But the best thing is to see for yourself:
What kind of game is this?
But what exactly will we be doing in Rooted, and what is the game about? We briefly summarise all the information we have so far. This much we can already reveal: There is no concrete release date yet. But you can already add it to your wish list on Steam).
Background and Story
Unlike many other survival games, Rooted does not present us with the usual zombie apocalypse. Instead, human civilisation was destroyed by global biological warfare and only a few people managed to survive. In the trailer we can hear the public address announcements trying to downplay the danger before the disaster.
Game World
In Rooted we are apparently supposed to explore a huge open world on foot and with cars: Besides a large city, the surrounding forests and some villages await us. These are populated not only by wild, and sometimes dangerous, animals such as deer, wolves and bears, but also by other survivors. The latter also seem to be mostly hostile to us, competing for resources and safe places.
Urban areas are also still contaminated by the deployed bio-weapons and can only be entered with appropriate protective equipment. The city will therefore probably only be open to more experienced characters for exploration. This is also where the most dangerous enemies in the game lurk: small combat robots that are supposed to be used to protect the population.
Incidentally, the game world will not only be built by hand. Because of the sheer size, the developers also want to rely on procedural generation.
Gameplay
Survival Mechanics: As you explore your surroundings, you must always be mindful of your physical well-being. Not only do you need to eat and drink, but you also need to keep warm. If you are out in the rain for too long or have inadequate clothing, you are likely to fall ill.
Base building and crafting: In Rooted, you can also build your own shelter or make yourself comfortable in abandoned houses if you collect enough resources for it. So far, only simple buildings are shown in the trailer, but base building will be expanded if the corresponding Kickstarter goals are reached. We should also be able to automate some manufacturing processes.
In addition to houses, we can of course also build tools, weapons and other equipment ourselves. To learn advanced building plans, we first have to disassemble several items of the same kind. Later, we can also build a small drone with which we can scout out dangerous areas first.
Fights: As mentioned before, we mess with wild animals, humans and fighting robots. How the fights work and look, however, has not yet been shown. The trailer already reveals that we use firearms, but close combat will certainly play a certain role as well. Our base can also be attacked by enemy NPCs, which is why we set up defences there.
Cooperative Multiplayer: Rooted can be played alone or in multiplayer. However, the latter is initially only planned as a co-op mode. You explore with a set group of fellow players, but you still have to be careful. You can also accidentally injure your team mates by firing at them.
Can this even be finished?
This all actually sounds like a great game, but of course there is a sword of Damocles hanging over the whole project: Because behind Rooted there is no big publisher, but an independent and small developer team, which wants to finance its game via Kickstarter at first.
So far, the developers have been able to raise about (22,000 euros). However, the first goal will only be reached at 60,000 euros. The multiplayer can be developed at 190,000 euros in donations, and so on. So the most interesting and advanced features are still far from possible realisation, and the Kickstarter campaign only runs until October 2022.
With the current level of donations, it will be difficult for the developers to raise the hoped-for funds. Whether the set schedule with an alpha in spring 2023 and the early access release in spring 2024 can be kept seems questionable. If the Kickstarter campaign fails, they would like to finance the game in another way and hope for a loan from Epic or something similar. On their (Discord channel) the developers want to share their progress on a weekly basis.
Editor”s verdict
ooted is for me unfortunately one of those games that are (still) probably too good to be true. I really wish that the developers would succeed with their project. But even with secured funding and a large development team, Rooted would be a very ambitious project that would probably take years to complete.
On the other hand, eight people with a budget of only a few thousand euros so far probably won”t get very far. It remains to be hoped for Rooted that the Kickstarter campaign will still get a much-needed boost, or that another funding opportunity will open up in the end. Because the idea of the game itself, while not exceptional, is solid and could develop into an interesting game. It remains to be seen what will become of this survival game.
