Solo and difficulty

[sam.origan]

I m interested but how is the solo play ? Is it hard or no ? Is it like a Satisfactory survival fps ? Or really really survival ?

[КрендельФигов]

Same as Satisfactory (I'm from there) only PvE (and there are three maps, two in additional DLC). Most people play solo, help from friends is completely unnecessary. Grind only at the beginning of the game, and then everything is very easy (composite bow, composite armor + titanium rifle and all problems will almost completely disappear).

[ulzgoroth]

Satisfactory isn't a survival game at all.

Icarus has somewhat serious survival mechanics. You will have a bad time if you don't keep yourself in shelter, food, and water. Oh, and oxygen. Though doing so is quite easy at least in the starter biome once you have any idea what you're doing.

The larger (but still usually small) danger is hyperaggressive wildlife, much of which acts more like generic monsters than animals. Most of those, still, you should be able to beat fairly handily with just a wood spear or even a stone axe. Bears are more problematic. I spent over an hour of prep work to take out my first, though they seem to get easier. (Or maybe the level is a factor, IDK what animal levels mean.)

Of course, I'm only talking about the introductory forest biome here - it is likely that other biomes make basic survival questions more difficult.


I would hesitate to say that Icarus is fully a hardcore survival game - there's a lot of room for that to ramp up - but it's definitely a survival game.



As for solo? Not too bad. I suspect it effectively makes the combat harder and maybe especially boss fights(?), but you'd need to check with someone who has played non-solo to be sure. It obviously limits your total human inventory space a bit. You do get an extra perk tree that only applies when soloing though, which seems to have some nice edges.

[Th3MuFFinMaN]

It is a doable game solo it IS harder in the beginning but its a game you can play solo it does make some stuff easier if you have at least one friend that would jump on and help but def give this game a shot even in solo

[william_es]

It's very playable solo.

There's even an entire extra skill tree that only works in solo mode, with lots of quality of life improvement skills, that can boost numerous areas of gameplay.

[Grobi]

I would say, don't even buy it.

Icarus is one of the most generic survival games I have played in the last 5 years. It has absolutely nothing that makes it amazing, unique, or anything beyond boredom. The graphics are okay at best, far worse than Ark or even Conan Exiles. There are not many assets in the game, with few animals and tree varieties. The game world is not really believable, and the immersion level is very low. The gameplay is clunky; for example, jumping in this game is a nightmare.

There are so many negative aspects of this game, but almost nothing good I could tell you. I only got a little bit of the story, but apparently, a company throws you onto an alien planet without equipment because you're not considered valuable. This doesn't make sense - if they expect you to die, why would they waste a drop pod on you? The planet you land on is not believable either; most of the animals are familiar from Earth, as are the plants (or the 3 tree models in the game, haha). There are a handful of alien creatures, but it doesn't make much sense at all. A game like Satisfactory created a much more plausible alien world.

All other survival games had one thing that made them unique: Ark with its dinosaurs, and Conan Exiles with its building system and thralls, for example. The unique feature of this game was supposed to be a mix between survival and roguelike elements, but it never worked out. Normally, before the open world, you would do missions, earn stuff, get better items from the shop, and have an easier time on the next mission. But it was just boring. In a game like Ark, the early game is fun, but you wouldn't want to do it over and over again. However, in Icarus, you had to. The problem here is that it's just clunky and boring, especially in the early game.

To wrap things up, the open world is super useless; it's just a shell. The only thing you do here is grind from one tier to the next, to the next skill or item point. It's just way too boring; there is nothing special to it. Think about 7 Days to Die, then play it without zombies - there you go, welcome to Icarus.

[Defektiv]

I would say the hardest part solo is the encounters with epic enemies, especially in open world missions where they have a small unmarked area they are locked to and will reset their large HP pool if you get outside that area. Beyond that its just all about leveling up and working your way through resource tiers to become powerful enough to make missions easier and to create and maintain sources of resources to build what you need to progress. In timed stand-alone missions you have to progress through these loops and engage with the mission objectives within an established time period, and that can be a bit of a challenge playing solo. But when you have most things unlocked and are familiar with resource locations and progression, it becomes a bit easier.

The first time you play through it can feel a bit overwhelming as you struggle against storms and enemies to survive and keep your base intact. After you have leveled and unlocked everything you can pretty quickly skip through the early tiers like thatch and wood on new drops so you no longer struggle with those problems as much.

[Fibrosis]

Has the best storms of any game I've ever played

[morp]

Was thinking of buying also. But decided not to.
After watching YouTube play I'd have to agree with Grobi here.
Also the greed of the marketeers has me upset especially after just missing a 50% sale.

I paid $35.00 for Satisfactory(Way better looking graphics and immersion) which continued to upgrade all it's biomes throughout development "free" rather than require you to pay for DLC.

I just bought, "The Long Dark" for $45.00 which included all their expansions.
Now Icarus marketers want to me to pay $72.00 for all expansions that seem to be full of bugs, watching YouTube and reading all the negative reviews and these discussions.

From what I hear they have another DLC on the way which will probably cost another $30.00 before fixing all the bugs they currently have.

This game for me is not worth it for my budget and will remain enjoyable only on YouTube where I can watch someone else skip through all the grind and bug irritations for me. It looks like a nice copy of Satisfactory with crafting and skills built in. But I won't even look at, "Total War Warhammer" anymore because of their ludicrous DLC extortion.

Maximum profit demands maximum ignorance. (Especially from the consumer)
You can quote me of coarse but I wouldn't recommend it. Cheers!