Developer: CampFire Studio
Publisher: Qooland Games
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Soulmask – Preview
It seems that Survival games are gaining a lot of ground again. We have seen the recent Early Access releases of Enshrouded, Omega Crafter, and Palworld, which all put the genre back on the map. Another recent entry is that of V Rising, which is another top entry in the genre, albeit one that was viewed from a top-down perspective. This time, we are looking at another Early Access release that is making waves, namely Soulmask. This original Survival game grants you the power of a special mask that can take over different characters, allowing you to progress by using the skills of your entire tribe, rather than focusing on your own created character. While we enjoyed what is on offer, there is still quite some work to do.
To start with the most obvious part, Soulmask follows the same formula as many other games in the genre. You get dropped in a world with only a few basic items, and you’ll have to collect resources to start crafting items and structures. For the most part, amassing basic resources and crafting starting items goes fairly quickly. You’ll find yourself starting a small settlement easily at the beginning of the game, especially if you’re playing privately without other people running around in the same world. You can customize said world further by turning off the decay rate of structures, and you can even reduce other things such as hunger or the need for rest as well. That being said, turning down all the settings might take away any challenge the game has to offer.
All in all, the visuals are great. We loved the overall designs, and it’s great to see your own tribe evolve as you unlock new crafting options and upgrade your old gear. The mask designs are also quite cool, even if the customization options in the game are very limited. You create a character at the beginning, to then also choose your mask options a few moments later. You’ll soon notice that the customization takes the backseat for a reason, as you’ll have to take over the tribesman you convert, to use their skills to further evolve. The character you create has a certain level cap, which pushes you to take over more skilled characters for certain tasks. This system is original, but it also makes it hard to get attached to characters. In a way, your mask is your character, but we couldn’t really bond with an ornament.
The general gameplay loop is quite enjoyable. It’s fun to try out the different weapons, even if some animations still look a bit janky in this department. You’ll constantly be able to gather resources with the tools you make, and the combat in the game is also satisfying. You notice that some of the AI of the enemies is a bit dodgy, and some also react on input rather than the action you take. This caused some enemies to dodge already the moment when we pressed the throw button, for example. Nonetheless, the foundation is solid, and we can’t wait to see the combat and gathering mechanics be polished even further.
One interesting feature is that you can pretty much program your tribesman as you could your Gammi in Omega Crafter. You can assign tasks to your underlings to craft items, gather materials, and so on. With this, you can create automated processes and skip a few tasks yourself. The system does work properly, but we encountered a few bugs where tasks didn’t work or our followers wouldn’t actually follow us when instructed.
Sadly, not everything is that good in Soulmask just yet. For the time being, we find the early parts of the game a bit dull, and the tutorials do not make the package more attractive. You’ll go through one text explanation after another, with basic tutorials in the left corner telling you what to do. Not everything is very clear though, and this is made worse by the many menus you’ll have to go through. At times it felt as if we were opening a massive ledger each time we needed something. On top of that, the inventory system isn’t that intuitive, and the same can be said about the building mechanics. All these items still feel very rough around the edges. Of course, this is expected for an Early Access release. We also hope the developers will add a crafting from storage feature, as it’s extremely tedious to constantly retrieve gathered items to put them in your limited inventory.
Conclusion
Soulmask already offers quite a few things to do, and in certain aspects, we feel as if we barely scratched the surface, but at the same time, we also got a certain fatigue from playing the game. Don’t get us wrong, however, this is a title that shows a tremendous amount of promise, but we do hope the game becomes a tad more accessible with more intuitive tutorials and less cluttered menus. Some additional crafting comfort features, such as crafting from storage, would also be appreciated here. That being said, the overall gameplay loop is already enjoyable, the tribe system is interesting, and we did very much enjoy the current (limited) weapon types. After a few more updates we’ll certainly return to the world of Soulmask.
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