Developer: Phosphor Games Studio
Publisher: Nether Productions
Platform: PC
Nether – Preview
Phosphor Games brings us Nether, a first-person survival game that falls under the same category as DayZ, Rust and 7 Days to Die albeit with a different storyline. Almost a decade ago a large solar flare hit the earth. This day is referred to as The Cull and caused a complete rampage in the city as many of humanity carried a genetic gen that caused humans to mutate into the Nethers that are now rampaging the city. Some were lucky to be free of this genetic anomaly but they are now forced to make regrettable decisions in order to stay alive.
Upon launch you will be met with a server overview that includes AP, EU West, US East and US West servers. In this overview, you can also see which tribe is controlling the server and how many players there are. An option to hide full and empty servers is available. At the moment, each server has a capacity to house a maximum of 64 players. Once you’ve chosen a server, you will see a character creation screen which is somewhat surprisingly as your characters are not permanent.
You will start out with a regular kitchen knife which will be your best friend throughout the game until you can pick up some bigger melee weapons such as swords, katana’s and even shovels. Attacking with melee weapons has a slightly annoying mechanic as holding the button will do absolutely nothing. It is only at release that your weapon will strike your enemy. You can make use of firearms, if you find the parts and ammunition for it but the sound of the gunfire will alert Nethers around you. This can put you in a very tricky situation, one you’d rather not find yourself in as these Nethers can teleport to where you are. Killing Nethers and other humanoids will grant your experience which is needed to improve your skilltree. This is a feature that you will need in order to survive long enough. Dying however will cause you to lose everything you’ve worked for, including your inventory, character level and your skilltree will be wiped clean. This forces you to start completely from scratch again but another feature is added to soften the blow. As you play, you will also gain experience for your account level which can reward you with an increase of HP, cash, backpack capacity and much more.
To survive is to kill. Just like DayZ and other survival games out there, the creatures that caused this apocalypse are not the only ones that are lurking in the shadows. The other survivalists and hunger may in fact be your biggest threat. You can join a tribe in order to increase your survival chances but you should always stay on your guard when you scavenge because betrayal is true nature in Nether. Depending on where you find yourself in the city, loot seems to be fairly scarce. The closest you are to the safezones, the less worthy the loot seems to be. These safezones are also home for the merchants such as the Weaponsmith that will craft weapons for you if you bring the correct parts and the Order of the Cull trading shop that will trade harvested Nether parts for useful items such as ammunition, pain pills and gun parts. You will also find a huge amount of courier packages that need to be delivered to other safezones and outposts throughout the city. Each of these packages will give you a cash and XP reward however, the safezones can be attacked by the Nethers. Players are given a warning ten minutes prior to the attack but during the attack itself, the stores will become unavailable. As soon as the attack is happening, PvP will be enabled for this region and players are advised to work together to re-activate six hidden anti-Nether devices. Once all six beacons are activated, the region will become a safezone once more and the attacking Nethers will despawn. The question is whether or not you should trust other survivalists while you’re on this mission.
The open world of Nether resembles the one that can be found in DayZ. While the graphics are not top notch, they can still leave you with stunning, realistic scenes of a city in ruins. If you find yourself on top of a tall building, its gloomy landscape can truly leave you breathless. As for the sound in-game, the eerie feeling is certainly prominent with the means of blowing winds and chirping crickets. Occasionally you will hear some screeches from the Nethers themselves. This sound will act as your personal alarm system in case you can’t see them.
Nether is currently still in Early Access which means that it still has some bugs that need to be fixed. The majority of these bugs are small graphical glitches such as corpses that are randomly moving across the ground and boiling blood that should be on top of the ground but occasionally vanishes under the ground. There tend to be invisible walls in the game that prevents you from going down the same way you went up but these can be jumped over quite easily. For now, the biggest bug you may encounter is the one upon death where you will be asked if you want to switch to a new character or go back to the main menu. Switching works as intended but wanting to go back to the main menu will get you stuck and will force you to close the game.
Conclusion
Nether is a great game if you want to become one of the greatest survivalist in a demolished world but it requires a certain amount of devotion as threats are lurking behind every corner. Multiple deaths are inevitable and may put you off as you will need to start from scratch over and over again but this is something that may change upon release. If you enjoy the freedom of the open worlds in DayZ and Rust, you will certainly love Nether and its gloomy landscapes.
Nether - Preview,
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