Atrio: The Dark Wild caught first our interest in our Xbox Indie Showcase recap with its striking visuals, and then our attention with its intriguing blend of the survival genre and automation elements. Everything we’ve seen so far for Atrio: The Dark Wild has only raised more questions, so we reached out to Isto Inc’s Stephen Huang. If you’re ready to dive into the unsettling world of Atrio: The Dark Wild, read on… What is Atrio: The Dark Wild?Atrio: The Dark Wild is an atmospheric, cyberpunk-inspired post-apocalyptic survival game, in development from Isto Inc.When does Atrio: The Dark Wild launch?We don’t yet have a release date for Atrio: The Dark Wild on consoles, but it launches into Steam Early Access on August 10th. We’ll update you as soon as we know the console release date.What’s it about?A key question, and one that’s tricky to answer. “Without spoiling too much, you are a disposable android sent on a mission to restore the mysterious Station 3,” Huang says. Aside from that, what we’ve seen so far of Atrio: The Dark Wild has left us — literally — in the dark, and that’s important. To get any answers on what’s happened to the world, to humanity, we’ll need to venture out into that darkness. Aside from the mystery of what happened to the world, venturing into that darkness is also essential to survival, as we’ll need to capture the strange half-robot creatures we come across to create assembly lines and keep our base going. Every creature in Atrio: The Dark Wild can be captured and exploited in this way, leading to increasingly complex assembly lines, but since, according to Isto, “everything is out to kill you,” collecting them won’t be an easy task. Huang says the inspiration for the game “actually came from a YouTube video of oysters. We saw that oysters can actually filter 5L of filthy bog water into crystal clear water within a couple of hours, so we thought, ‘what if every creature plays a purpose in your automation?’ From that, Atrio was born.”What’s the Atrio: The Dark Wild gameplay like?Atrio: The Dark Wild is an interesting blend of survival elements and automation. Interestingly, Huang says that “each creature plays a unique and specific function in your assembly line,” so it sounds as though we’ll need to do numerous forays out into the Dark Wild to ensure we have the most efficient base. Atrio: The Dark Wild looks like a strikingly novel experience, although if you’re wondering what sort of skills you’ll be needing for it, Huang cites Don’t Starve Together and Factorio as “the two games that we’re closest to.”What’s the world like?Atrio boasts a striking art style, while the world itself can plunge from neon lights to pitch black in an instant. “It was very important to us that we stand out visually,” Huang explains. “We spent a ton of time looking at different art styles that were relatively unique — we discovered this artist by the name of Romain Trystram. His art style is beyond incredible. From that, we started to sketch ideas with him as inspiration and landed on our art style.”The creatures of Atrio: The Dark Wild are as distinctive as the art style, with an intriguing half-robot, half-organic design. “I’m not a classically trained artist, so I struggled greatly to come up with creatures that looked both visually compelling and worked in our art style,” Huang says. “I took a ton of reference photos from the internet (mostly of real-life creatures), drew on top of them and landed on some of the designs.” You can check out his process over on Imgur.As for the world itself, in the trailer, we saw our character exploring a neon city before heading back to their base. Huang lists three biomes — the downtown, the forest, and the blood lake — and says “each has a unique vibe and feel, with its own unique creatures.”Any news on Atrio: The Dark Wild achievements?We don’t yet have the full Atrio: The Dark Wild achievement list, but Huang gave us a few clues about what we’ll be in for. “We have a lot of heated debates on achievements,” Huang says. “Nothing is set in stone, but we were thinking about completely skipping the arbitrary achievements (e.g. Complete chapter 1), and only adding super ridiculously hard achievements that are missions in themselves.” Speedrunners, prepare yourselves, as Huang adds, “Our big focus right now is actually on speedruns. One of our team members really likes speedruns, so we’re internally always competing to see how fast we can beat the game. I personally don’t think the game is very difficult, but newcomers might find it to be hard, so for the veteran players out there, the speedrun is the big challenge!”
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