I am absolutely ashamed of myself.

I've never considered graphics an issue. Many of my favorite games are pretty old, and I've never minded motionless sprites or minimal animation. I played Spiderweb Software's Exile back in the 90s (and sank countless hours into both of its remakes), along with obscure RPGs like Realmz and TaskMaker, and I enjoyed some truly ancient roguelikes found on shareware CDs that came with magazines. I never had any problems with putting myself into my characters' shoes, graphics notwithstanding. I feel as if the minimal graphics give my imagination more freedom to roam and create on its own, much like reading a book.

And yet, when I first saw this game, I thought "Meh... not what I'm looking for." How wrong I was.

I was a relatively late arrival to the survival genre, used to this type of game in 3D, with elaborate building systems and first-person perspective. For some reason, seeing UnReal World's top-down 2D view just didn't connect with me like its newer cousins and derivatives, despite my long history of 2D gaming. I guess I just didn't understand it; didn't grasp how the survival concept could work in a 2D world.

I am ashamed because I more or less dismissed this game, turned off by the oldschool appearance and UI, despite my own beloved memories involving games that looked even more primitive. I thought the LARP photos standing in for characters were kind of silly, despite the fact that I own a full RenFaire outfit and have eagerly attended Hurstwic classes. I have a personal goal to go primitive camping and sleep on a reindeer hide someday. (I did get to touch one, once, at a reconstruction of a Viking camp. It was super thick and honestly felt like memory foam. I want to know how my underpowered, microwave-fed 20th-century body would feel, waking up on that.) I've painted my own shield and I own a combat-grade warhammer. There are throwing axes in my bedroom.

My point is that I am absolutely the target audience, and yet despite everything I know about myself, I dismissed this game. I thought it looked a bit weak, silly even, and moved on. I did at least have the presence of mind to put it on my wishlist.

I am an ♥♥♥♥♥. This game is anything but weak. It's stronger and harder than me.

I finally bought UnReal World because it kept coming up in lists of "hardest survival games," and that was what I wanted. They weren't wrong. 3D graphics don't mean sh*t. My first experience playing UnReal World was absolutely on par with my first experiences of huddling in freezing terror in the legacy version of Savage Lands, or frantically building a dirt house in Minecraft and hoping my 4 torches would be enough before nightfall, or quivering in an unfinished thatch hut in ARK while praying the raptors wouldn't notice me despite only having gotten three walls up in time, or finishing my first tiny house and getting inside just before the deadly sandstorm hit me in Conan Exiles.

My first death was to a bear that lurked near my campsite and showed no interest in me. I ignored it and went about my business. That was a fatal mistake, and one day, the bear decided I was not beneath its notice after all. I blithely selected "No" when asked if I'd like to cancel my current action because my ursine neighbor had just come into view. After all, it had never bothered me before. The bear rewarded my faith in its benign nature by charging forward and swiping the life right out of me with its massive claws. I lay bleeding out in terrible confusion, and then the screen went black.

I'll remember that death. You always remember your first.

Since then, I have frozen to death, ♥♥♥♥♥ on a rock surrounded by water, hoping to meet a spirit. I have been murdered by a Njerpezit warrior whose pathetic combat skills (equal to mine) resulted in a fruitless trading of blows for over a quarter of an hour until he scored a lucky hit and put his handaxe through my face. I have drowned after misjudging the width of a river in comparison to my own swimming skill, weighed down by inexperience and hubris. I have starved, bled, vomited, and suffered, and I remember every death with just as much passion as the ancient epics.

But I've also triumphed. I've awoken to strange noises to discover an elk in my pit trap, and suddenly found myself with enough food for months. I've pulled nets in from the sea that resulted in a catch even the gods would envy. I've thrust a spear straight through a Njerpezit skull and watched his dog flee in terror. I've covered myself in bear hides and carved my own skis, to glide across the snow with the meager winter sun glimmering in the frost on my fur-cloaked shoulders.

I played until the sun came up, and then I kept playing. In the end, I lost a day. An entire day. I emerged from my bedroom to discover that the sun had gone down. I wondered what happened.

This game happened. UnReal World eats hours like nothing else I've ever experienced. I have to be very careful. I've never been addicted to hard drugs, but I imagine this is what it's like.

In my mind, the 2D graphics have become a tangled, snow-laden forest; churning rapids; a hastily-constructed shelter built in desperation by frostbitten hands; a lucky fish catch hours from death by starvation; a hurriedly-built fire providing last-minute salvation; each meal a brief moment of respite from a constant sense of impending doom just as intense as any Jack London story. The LARP character photos, with their limited dialogue, have each become individuals offering a precious moment of human contact in an unforgiving world that wants nothing more than to chew me up and spit me into an early, unmourned grave. It says a lot that your ancestors are remembered for their deaths above anything else they accomplished.

Now, whether I'm at work, or grocery shopping, or watching TV, or doing pretty much anything, a part of my soul is forever stuck in Iron Age Finland, plotting my next move, craving the harsh, brutally beautiful, low-resolution landscape, and all its dangers and rewards. Enormous Elk, I kneel to you. Your game has written its own name in my prideful blood, and I regret nothing.

The forest is waiting. Just give in.

Before I start, I just need to add: you can download this game for free from the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ UnReal World website! The free version is practically (if not entirely) identical to the Steam version. Even if you're totally enamoured with this game by the looks of the descriptions and reviews, I still urge people to play the free version before grabbing the Steam one. Once you've given it a shot, you can make a much better decision on if you want to drop money on it. I told myself that if I played the free version for longer than eight hours, I'd buy the Steam version even if I never boot it up again. I clocked about ten hours, bought it on Steam, then continued to play it for however long it says I have at the top of this review.

I really love this game. It's deep, but I've never felt truly lost; when you make a character, you can pick to have a goal-orientated quest system that teaches you how to play. This ranges from 'This is how you drink water, you gigantic ♥♥♥♥♥' to building your own house and trading for animals. Once you've grasped the basics, the game opens up as the survival roguelike it aims to be. If you want to know all the cool mechanics that come with the game, the other positive reviews go into passionate detail about what makes the game great. To avoid clashing with people who have literally hundreds of hours of gametime over me, I'll instead relay something that's unique to me; an in-game story.

Fur is really important in UnReal World. It's valuable, it's useful, and it'll stop you from freezing to death when Snow Hell decides to pay a visit. Unfortunately, being a total newbie at the game, the only hides I can get are from squirrels, hares, and ermines. Not very prestigious. The only big hides I had managed to score was one of a bear and an elk, and that's because they fell into a pit trap I set up and became a sitting duck for my volley of arrows. Basically, I'm a bad hunter.

One day I'm out in the snow in my bear fur clothes, checking my pit traps to see if any more suckers have taken pity on my awful hunting skills. The traps are on the border between a mire and a forest, set up to channel and capture any animals walking from one area to another. This time, I noticed a wolf on the world map standing in the mire, so I zoom in on the action to see what's going on.

Turns out, it's not a wolf. It's a pack of them.

At this point of the game, the most dangerous thing I've successfully managed to hunt (that wasn't sitting in a pit and woefully awaiting death) is a fox. All the animals I've come across are basically 'let's see how close I can get before it runs away at the speed of light'. The wolves didn't do that. They decided that I'm up for dinner. They charge at me ("What? Animals attack you in this game?!") and suddenly I'm reaching for my bow. I thought I was a goner, but it turns out that shooting an arrow into the shoulder of a charging wolf is a good deterrent (who knew?). It became a game of scoring a single wound on each attacking wolf to scare them and make them flee. I scored a particularly good hit on one wolf, and I chased down its limping self and attacked its head for a kill. Skinned its fur and butchered its meat and fat. Good stuff.

That's when I discovered why wolves were even here in the first place; lying in the middle of the field was a wolf-torn elk. I approached it and checked the hide, and was surprised to see the wolves hadn't mangled it beyond recognition. It was about a quarter of the way through skinning it that I realised the wolves were still around -- just keeping their distance. I decided to grab the skin and forget the butchering, get out while I still could. I didn't need the meat, the fur was the real gold here.

So I walk home with some wolf and elk fur under my arms. The total sum of the furs I had back home came to something like 8lbs; the fur I was carring totalled 30lbs. A good catch! I set the wolf fur down and use its fat from the butchering to tan it. I then set the elk fur down and -- wait! I didn't butcher the elk! I don't have any fat to tan it with! 20lbs of fur was threaning to go rotten on me if I didn't find a solution, and fast.

I dumped the fur in my cold, 'please don't rot on me' cellar and made a return to the elk. Turns out, so had the wolves, and they had regained their courage. Some nasty nips later, I decided my life wasn't worth some fat and fled.

I looked up about the tanning process to try to find alternatives for my elk fur. Turns out, you don't have to use fat. The skinned barks of alder and rowan trees work just as well. Big problem; I lived in a gigantic forest of pine and birch. So begins the race against time to find an alder or rowan tree before my goldmine attracts flies rather than merchants.

So I'm darting around the world map, cursing every pine and birch that I see. That's when I find a herd of reindeer milling around. I decided to try my luck, so I zoomed in and took a less-than-hopeful shot at the nearest one, expecting a total miss and all the reindeer to flee. It hits. Fire off a second arrow before the victim has a chance to run. Second one hits.

Oh crap. So this is what hunting feels like.

The reindeer has been so badly hit, it's practically crawling its way across the floor. I catch up with it and start trying to unload arrows into its head. My aim is so bad that it ends up hitting the shoulder, body, and even one hit on the knee, at which point I reprimanded UnReal World for its poor choice of meme references. It was around the time I decided to equip a javelin and start poking its head that my character falls asleep. Turns out, fighting wolves and lugging fur across a continent really tires a man out. Who knew?

I awoke with the reindeer nowhere in sight. I followed its tracks and found it only a short run away, still desperately trying to crawl its way to freedom. I started poking at its head with the javelin until it dies, skinned it, made sure to grab the fat this time, and recovered the arrows I had fired. The fat of the reindeer was enough to tan its own hide, but not enough to tan the elk's. The hunt for the tree was still on.

I read up on alder and rowan trees, and found out that they mostly grow in and around villages. So I poked my head into the local village and -- sure enough -- sitting in the middle of the field all proud of itself was an alder tree. The villagers were probably weirded out to see a man walk into their village, cry 'YES!' and then begin frantically carving the bark off of one of their trees. I didn't care. Elk fur was back in fashion, baby.

So that's how I went from Small Game Extraordinaire to sleeping in the furs of a wolf, elk, and reindeer, all because I decided to go check my traps for a bit. My bear fur clothes had some nasty wolf bites in them and I had sufffered a few nasty scratches myself, but I could probably line the entirety of my house in fur now. It was about this time I realised that maybe, just maybe, UnReal World is an awesome game and that I'm glad I got it.

Stay safe in the cold North, folks!

I have been playing UnReal World since 2004. If the game clocked hours before it came to Steam I would be in the thousands. So let's talk about URW.

URW is a roguelike survival game set in Iron Age Finland. It has been made (mostly) by one person and has been in development since 1992. That's 24 years. Talk about dedication.

You survive through the four seasons by hunting, gathering, fishing, trading, trapping and farming. You can make a huge variety of items ranging from wooden pots to your very own house and sauna. You will learn the importance of shelter, fire and the advantages of a ranged weapon. Will you be a fisherman hermit? A travelling merchant? Or maybe a proud warrior? You can play the game however you want.

There's a steep learning curve to the game since there is simply so much to do. The number of hotkeys on the keyboard rivals Microsoft Flight Simulator. The game does have a good manual and plenty of flavor text for history geeks. And let's not forget the lovely LARP pictures for all the characters.

Venture into the Far North. And don't forget to tan your hides.

I'm probably alive because of this game. I was sick and bedridden for a long time, and somehow found this game which let me go outside. The immersion factor is off the walls. I missed things like going hiking and just being out in the natural world, but I got to explore and more through URW. It was my life for a while. My first few characters died quickly, and I had no idea at all how to play, but I learned and discovered and got way too emotionally attached. Even after playing for so long, it's still a very difficult game and death is just as possible as earlier. I love the challenge even when tragedy is devastating (my sheep...my dogs...RIP). When it came out on Steam I was really happy to support the game, I still play an old version saved on my computer as well. It's an exciting game with endless potential. UnReal World, paljon kiitoksia.

Holds the Guinness World Record for, "Longest Update Support for a Game".

Going strong at 25 years of development now.

What more can you ask for?

UnReal World has completely re-contextualized to me what the "survival" genre is.

When I have think of games tagged with survival, I think of games like Minecraft or The Forest. In most survival games, there are systems to determine the efficacy of your survival. For example, Minecraft and The Forest have bars to determine how hungry or tired you are. Even relatively inexperienced players can quickly "solve" these bars with reserves or finding easy and periodic ways to re-fill these bars.

With time, survival becomes obsolete- it's an early challenge that gets curtailed quickly as you progress through the game. Survival simply becomes second nature to the game experience; surviving is no longer an objective.

In UnReal World everything is about survival. There is no ulterior motive to your survival- all you want to do is live.

In aforementioned titles, you will hold an axe in your hand within minutes of playing. In UnReal World, you must meticulously gather all the materials for an axe. You will need to bind the birch tree scraps by hand to make rope strong enough to hold a rock, which you sharpened upon a stone. You will get cold, and need to take many breaks while doing this; you will get hungry, and need to take many breaks while doing this.

In aforementioned titles, a home will serve as a central place for storage or a rendezvous to checkpoint at. In UnReal World, a home is for warmth to survive the brutal cold of the winter.

In aforementioned titles, a home will something you easily make after interacting with a tree and then bringing raw tree materials to a menu that makes them into your home. In UnReal World, you must arduously chop down every tree. You must turn the felled tree into a log. You must fatigue yourself pushing the log inch by inch. You will get tired. You will collapse in exhaustion over the simple act of moving a log. Do this 5 more times and you can build the corner of your house. All while needing to make sure you don't starve, you don't get too cold, you don't get so tired you fall over.

In my limited experience to the game, I have realized that the "survival" genre has been tagged onto so many games wherein survival is not the main goal. If you want a game where you are truly fighting to survive, UnReal World will deliver an unparalleled experience.

As many have commented, this game's control scheme is keyboard only. It is a learning curve, but it's not unconquerable. Within a couple hours, I was comfortably interacting with the world. The in-game tutorial and resources give enough information paired with the online resources that any new player can comfortably have an enjoyable survival experience within their first 1-2 hours of game play.

Here are a few things to know before purchase:
1. This first build of this game was created in 1992; it came to Steam in 2016, therefore this game is very old.
2. The developers have been updating this game for over a quarter of a century with no plans to stop anytime soon... that is pretty amazing. This game is my nomination for the 2018 "Labor of Love" Steam Award.
3. No mouse or controller use. This game uses old school menu browsing with the keyboard; lots and lots of menus. It takes a bit of time to learn all the menus, but I've had this game for a week and I've already learned them well. Now they are like second nature to me, you just have to have patience if you want to learn this game.

↑↑↑ If any of this deters you, this is not the game for you.

That said, I am obsessed with this game! I never heard of it until last week. It is a very hard survival game where nothing is handed to you. Finally making a crappy axe makes you feel like you climbed a mountain. As I have said, I have had this game a week and I already have over 40 hours in it. This game can be very addicting if you give it a chance.

TIPS:
‣ If you choose to buy this, make sure to do the tutorial everytime your create a new character (you get some free stuff).
‣ You can toggle the type of movement control, I prefer the standard movement from other rogue-likes, but this game starts you off where one button click makes you turn around first. Very time consuming, make sure to switch it if you prefer.

PROS:
‣ Realistic iron-age survival
‣ I got a jumpscare from a little pixel warrior in my camp... PIXELS!
‣ Tons of stuff to craft, trade, and collect. It's a great game for horders.
‣ Random maps for unlimited replay value.

CONS:
‣ No music in-game; however, music would probably take away from the realism.
‣ You WILL need to read the Wiki, read the forums, find tutorials, or watch YouTube "Beginner Tips" videos to get going in this game, or you will become frustrated quickly.

PLAYER-TYPE DEPENDANT:
‣ Unforgiving... I've died from humans, animals, starvation, drowning, poisoning, cold, and many others. Mostly from my own stupid decisions (don't eat the weird mushroom).
‣ Old graphics. Graphics wh--es will most likely not enjoy this game, but this game is too good for them.

The most fascinating aspect of this game is truly unique in my experience: the gameplay is entirely self-directed. Once you get the hang of survival (fishing or trapping are reliable sources of protein), there is no "levelling system." There is no "grind for gear." There is no direction for the player other than keep surviving and do what you think is best. Wanna be a warrior? Fine. Farmer? OK. Travel the map with a reindeer at your side? Sure. Craft better stuff than the Driik can trade to you? Go for it.

The result is an RPG that is more "open world" than anything else I can imagine. Most open-world RPGs are following the path laid out by Sid Meier's Pirates! You become more and more important, more and more dominant, more and more skilled. In Unreal World, you will never become that dominant. You may take an arrow to the knee anytime you meet three vagabound robbers. Or starve slowly because your slight wound gets infected and disables you. Or fall though the ice and drown (WHY DO I KEEP CROSSING ICE??? I DO NOT EVEN KNOW!!!)

The payoff is not a dominant PC but a story about a life. Like this one: I had just begun a game with an Islander. I built a simple shelter, found a good fishing spot, and started exploring my island. Returning to my campfire two consecutive evenings, I was missing some fish I had left roasting by the fire. The first time, I thought I just mis-remembered the previous days catch. The second time, I looked around. A raven croaked nearby. So I put the day's catch to roast on top of a lever trap. I returned to find a trapped raven and no fish. So I ate raven for dinner. He probably tasted like fish.

No level-up, no reward, no achievement: just a genuinely unique interaction in a game that is both relaxing and challenging.

I don't make many reviews here on steam, but this game deserves one so much. I've also played the game a lot longer before it came to steam and still do.

Edit: My low hours is from offline play from the non-steam executable. I don't know why I don't use steam. I guess I'm just used to the other way around. I bought it on steam because I wanted to support the devs. :)

There is so much to say about Unreal World, but first I want to start off by saying that this is not a game that everyone will enjoy. Go check out the game on their website for free: http://www.unrealworld.fi/
You have to put in some effort to learn the controls (which don't take long, depending on how custom you are with roguelikes and basic keyboard layout) You also need to be able to use your imagination (which is our greatest gift for video games) to immerse yourself in your own world. Once you feel comfortable with that, you are set.

• Unreal World sets the player close to the iron age of human history located in Finland. You can see from the start as soon as you launch the game that the traditional and folklore of the finnish culture is in place by listening to the music. The Kantele is being used which is part of the Finnish culture and it immediately tries to immerse the player in its rich world.
  
  
• You choose a culture and then roll some stats. The world is then randomly generated and you get to choose a beginning "story" or setup to how you will play the first moments of the game. Each scenario has some sort of interesting background to help you be ready and immersed in the world. They are all interesting and some provide tools to help you get started.
  
  
• If you survive your initial scenario (depending if you chose a violent one) you are then free to do what you wish. Ultimately Unreal World is a simulator of sorts to show the player how our world is a dangerous one without the need of zombies and Rust like 24/7 violence. Like the Finnish Proverb says "The world will surely teach one; if nothing else, than to walk slowly." It's very true!

I won't go into details of what you can do because basically there are SO many things you can do and everything necessary is there to survive. If you were someone that read this because you thought you wouldn't be able to learn this or hate it for the graphics; well good for you b/c there are mods, in-game tutorials, encylopedia, and online guides.

+ Very Immersive
+ A game that allows players to use their imagination
+ Awesome Developers (Thanks Sami and Erkka)
+ In Depth Combat System
+ In Depth Injury System from cuts/bruises, to diseases and so much more
+ Accurate Historical Items and Folklore
+ Easily Moddable
+ High Replayability

-Roguelike Graphics: This is a con for some players used to modern graphics (Latest Update Improved them and mods help)
-Slight learning curve with keys (but is easily fluid once you get used to it)
-Could use more sounds IMO but overall very well done
-Pictures are somewhat corny but overall they do well (personal taste and easily moddable and mods help)

Overall, this is the TRUE survival game. I have over 400 hours of Rust and have played just about every survival game out there, but Unreal World just keeps pulling me back in for its in depth system of how we humans are adapted to survive in the impossible. This game allows me to use my imagination and do what I cannot do in my daily life.

Thank you so much for reading!

This is one of my favourite games ever. I played hundreds of hours of the free version before I could afford to buy it here, and I'd buy it again if I could.
I get bored of games really quickly, and yet I keep always coming back to three: Dwarf Fortress, Cataclysm:DDA, and Unreal World.
It's open, it's complex, it's unforgiving, and it's brilliant. If you're into that kind of game, you don't need to know anything else - Get it!