Realism is thrilling, but you don’t want something that’s too punishing, or close to inaccessible. On the contrary, if you’ve got the appetite for a rugged outdoor sim, you don’t want light or simplified crafting mechanics – everything should feel hard earned. The Forest and its even-more-gruesome sequel are both brutal survival games. Rust, likewise, has some particularly nasty combat and wounding mechanics. But a new competitor, created by a single developer, pushes realism even further with especially layered building and farming systems. If you want enjoyable co-op fun combined with punishing survivalism, The Last Plague: Blight might just be for you, and it’s available to try right now.
At first glance, The Last Plague: Blight has a lot in common with Soulmask, Sons of the Forest, Nightingale, or many of the other recent survival game standouts. The world has been obliterated by the eponymous contagious disease. As one of the last human beings alive, you need to scavenge, build, and fight while avoiding toxic clouds of the pathogen, as you research a potential cure. Created by solo developer Sergei Bezborodko, where The Last Plague: Blight becomes exceptional is its crafting system.
Rather than just collecting raw ingredients and maybe a blueprint, and then making whatever you want, in The Last Plague: Blight, you need to complete many more steps that are much closer to reality. You can’t just turn rocks and wood into weapons – they need to be decontaminated and treated first.
Likewise, if you want to process vegetables and fruits into more complex comestibles, they need time to ferment. You need to boil water before drinking it, and every one of these small preparational tasks consumes energy and time. As such, every decision about what you eat, drink, and create carries significant weight.
To lighten that load, however, The Last Plague: Blight can be played alongside three friends, becoming a tough but socially bonding co-op game. The Last Plague: Blight Steam Early Access release date is now set for Thursday October 3, 2024. In the meantime, however, it’s just gotten a new demo, so you can actually try it first hand right now. Simply head here.
Otherwise, maybe get some of the other best multiplayer games out there, or take a look at the rest of the year ahead with all the best upcoming PC games on their way to you.
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