Developer: Gentlymad Studios
Publisher: Assemble Entertainment, WhisperGames
Platform: Xbox Series X/S, PS5
Tested on: PS5
Endzone – A World Apart: Survivor Edition – Review
Last year in May we took a look at Endzone – A World Apart, which proved to be an interesting end-of-the-world simulation game. The title had interesting mechanics, and it created its own identity in the sea of very similar titles. While perhaps the game felt a bit less interesting than Frostpunk, it did manage to entertain us for quite some time. Now, the Survivor Edition has made its way onto the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, and we were quite eager to see how this game ran on our next-generation consoles. As we have already extensively covered the game on PC, we will only be discussing the relevancy of a console release for Endzone. If you wish to read our lengthy original review, you can do so by clicking here.
This version of Endzone is pretty much the same as the one you can get via Steam. Once again, you can opt to play the sandbox mode in which you can alter various settings. You can choose to play at a very low difficulty so you can make your own grand city at a casual and relaxing pace, but you can also up the difficulty and make it a lot harder for your inhabitants to survive. When doing so, the game will regularly present you with natural disasters, and you’ll have to race against time to make sure everyone is safe. Other than that, you can also play through dedicated scenarios, which will also present the player with a variety of challenges.
The atmosphere in Endzone is still pretty much spot-on. You’ll play in environments where nature has been phasing out the influences of mankind, and now it’s up to you to live off the land once again, hoping to rebuild a massive settlement. As a whole, everything looks great on the PS5, but on the big screen, it became quite noticeable that all the different building types look very similar, making your hustling and bustling metropolis look a bit bland. Nonetheless, the music makes up for a lot. The background music is both zen-like and eerie, with the first making it so that the music never gets annoying and the latter heightens the atmosphere.
For this release, we were amazed by the complete overhaul of the UI. It’s clear that this game wasn’t ported haphazardly. The Survivor Edition comes with the aforementioned UI overhaul, making it very accessible to play the game with a controller. All commands are properly marked, and it’s quite easy to navigate through the different menus. The only minor remark we had was that the time forwarding mechanic was a bit hidden to easily toggle between the different game speeds. Other than that, the game controls perfectly on PS5, but it was sometimes a bit harder to properly select smaller buildings. This could have been solved if the game allowed you to select a building easily in the region of your cursor by, for example, holding down a different button to make your cursor snap to the nearest target.
Conclusion
Endzone – A World Apart: Survivor Edition may come with a fairly high price tag, but it might just be one of the best sim games on the next-gen consoles. The game proves to be accessible for all types of players as you can cater the difficulty to your needs and play style. We were impressed with the complete UI overhaul and how smoothly the game ran when we filled the entire map with our post-apocalyptic community. Only actions that required high precision felt a bit tedious but other than that, this game is certainly worth looking into.
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