WARNING: ABANDONED GAME

Yet another abandoned game that had great potential and would be great even today, except as usual
there are many game breaking bugs that were never fixed for 5+ years.
- Items randomly disappear
- Crafting an item fails; the end item poofs but you also lose the hard earned resources
- Nothing in the game seems to respawn and yet you're expected to survive not to mention the game touts
that it is built for multiple people; this makes it unsustainable for even 1 player
- Saves are randomly wiped
- Corruption of files between coop players
- Interface fails to update skills bought and forces a restart of the game
- Many "skills" don't actually function and were reported 3+ years ago from the date of this review
- No real precise or comprehensive information to find out things about the game; trial an error is the only
way and often is extremely obtuse.

Anyway, another bummer in the massive floating bummer pile.

I used to want to wait until games released to review them; but with games staying in EA longer and longer, and going on sale during, friends keep on asking me if a game is worth it. So here we are.


The Wild Eight is a co-op survival game where you play one of eight characters (each having a different strength), who have survived a plane crash in a snow-filled forest. You can play in single player perfectly adequately, or play with a group to survive and explore together. It focuses on exploration and survival (food, water, temperature and monsters), with a small amount of building (just a couple of set items) and crafting. Whilst the world and the items are quite limited at the moment, it really excels in atmosphere and some of the indoor locations are fantastic. Creepy, interesting and surprising in some ways - I'm not putting any spoilers here though! There is a quest system, but the game can be played fairly openly, you're not obligated to follow the order directed at all.

• Beautiful graphics
  
• Eerie and fitting soundtrack
  
• Tough survival, but has two modes and the easier difficulty is much more forgiving
  
• Proper co-op survival where you work together.
  
• A fair few different inside/building locales, with some surprises in store
  
• Quite a few different items

• Early Access
  
• Currently fairly limited amount of monsters
  
• The outside world looks very similar
  
• Whilst survival (food/water/heat/outside animals) feels balanced, there are a few special monsters that feel VERY tough right now.
  
• Multiplayer can currently be a bit laggy.

I was one of the 1200 folks to back this game on Kickstarter and I was pretty sad it didn't make any of the stretch goals, and barely got through at all. Nothing I've kickstarted has released on time, and this game is no exception, with a kickstarter release date of Dec 2016 (EA keys were sent in Feb 2017). I was a little disappointed back in February, but the recent bunker update was fantastic. It has made some decent progress since that date, and to me, the existing game is now worth the money - with the promise of much more to come so I'm happy to recommend it.

It's a game that needs more - more items, more locations, more monsters - but I'm pleased with the core of this game, happy I supported it on Kickstarter and happy to recommend it.

I have bought this game as a part of humble bundle deal. The funny thing is that I actually wanted to try this game for a long time now. And now that I had chance to play it, I'm seriously disappointed. The short version, the devs abandoned this game long time ago without fixing important bugs and mechanics. This game isn't worth your money or time. If you want the long version, continue reading...
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1) Bugs, bugs everywhere...
Immediately after starting the game, you start to notice things like quest markers not disappearing after you finish the quest (this happens randomly and that's why I think it's a bug).
Some quests are tied to a certain item and the quest won't be marked as "done" until you interact with that item - most of the time it's some unimportant item such as muffin or similar thing you don't need when you reach certain level. But because the quest will stay active until you pick up that one specific object, you spend your time throwing items on the ground and picking up everything in the area, one by one.

2) Organized mess...
Interaction with items and objects is pain in the a$$. Simply put, when there's multiple items or objects close together, you have to slowly and carefully move your mouse over the few pixels to try to pick whatever you actually want to interact with. Or you can just pick everything and throw everything you don't want on the ground later. However, this doesn't work with objects (chests, etc...) and won't be possible when you have full inventory and need only that one specific item before you can go because you're trying to save your bacon by picking up wood, so you can make campfire and not freeze to death. Or you're trying to pick that weapon you threw instead of firing a pistol (because the weapon switch didn't work again for some reason), so you can protect yourself against wolfs.
You can't even divide items into individual stacks. For example, you need to take some ammo with you but you want to leave half behind just in case you would get killed again by "wasteland 2" status that came out of nowhere and you froze to death in a spot that you can't reach ever again to pick up your things because now you're freezing to death 2 rectangles on map earlier then before. So, if you managed to stack items that you didn't want to stack, you're fu*ked and you will never be able to divide that stack again.

3) Freezing in Arctica? Duh...
Unfortunately, the game freezes randomly for a split second even with the strongest hardware. Mostly at times when you're under attack and you need your reaction time to be as fast as possible. Or, as mentioned above, you're suddenly out of the map borders you're supposed to stay in, but the game registered that just now. In that case, say goodbye to all of the leather, ammo, vapor 3 suits you managed to loot in the last bunker, because you'll never be able to reach the spot you just died in ever again (even with multiple personal heaters after you finally managed to find a blueprint for it).

4) range combat is pointless
There are constant issues with terrain, moving targets and disappearing arrows. Basically, if you want to hit anything and kill it before it reaches you, you need to:
A) Be on a flat area - if you're fighting something while the target is standing on even the smallest rock, your shot won't hit it. To ensure that you're going to hit your target, you need to stand on the same level as the target and the target needs to stay still.
B) Use a pistol - if you're using his and arrows, you'll soon find out that not every time you try to shoot the arrow actually gets shot. Sometimes it just disappears immediately after you click your mouse and if you're fighting a mutant, you just lost precious shot that could save your life.
C) make sure the target is not moving - if you're trying to hit a moving target, you won't hit it. The reliable and basically the only way how to fight with long range weapons is to agro the poor thing you're trying to kill and then take as many shots as you can while it's running towards you.

5) consumables or quest items?
After you reach dynamite section, you'll find out that even the quest items are consumables. And if you managed to use them all before you unlocked that next section, you're pretty much fu*ked and you need to start the game from the beginning again. And if you do start the game again, you will be afraid to use anything that you can't craft just because it may be another quest related consumable you'll need later to progress further.

6) crafting in a survival game, checked... What do you mean "it's not good"?
Unfortunately, this is one of those games that has crafting system implemented just because it's expected to be. The crafting system is a mess. You often spend several minutes (even hours, if your looking for chemicals and other rare ingredients) trying to gather ingredients for that thing you want to make, just to find out that the loot you got during the grind is way better than whatever you'll make.
Another issue is that the cost isn't worth the item you're trying to craft. For example, if you want to craft basic bone arrows, you need just wood and bones. Pretty simple and easy to get. But if you want to upgrade to steel arrows, later in the game, you need wood, some leather strips and processed steel (steel is made by mining ore, forging it to iron and forging it again with no extra item. Thus, creating steel. Tadaaa). If you're a standard rpg player, you'll check what the improvent is if you're going to replace the old item with the improved version. In this case, you would find out that your damage output while using his would improve by 3. Which is basically nothing and combined with the disappearing arrows and targeting system I mentioned before, it makes one of the most useless and most expensive upgrades in the game.
Another issue with the crafting system is if you spent several minutes to gather the material you need for that specific item and then click on something else by mistake, you can't cancel the crafting process. You're forced to watch the loading animation showing how you're wasting valuable resources on something you don't want and probably don't have any use for. Multiple times I just stared at the screen, watching my precious recourses being wasted on something else, just because the crafting menu suddenly changed because you just used last piece of that thing you need to make the other thing and didn't notice in time (the crafting menu changes based on the materials you have in your inventory. The things you can currently make are the first in the menu).

7) legendary permanents
Chests, campfire and forges are the three objects you need to build at some point in the game. Unfortunately, these objects can't be removed - ever. That means, if you managed to build a forge in a spot which, for example, prevents a gate from opening (one specific quest made me really furious), you will never get past that gate. Or, for example, if you were forced to build a campfire in hurry, to avoid freezing to death, you just created a permanent marker on your map. If this sounds like a joke to you, imagine how showing this gets after a few hours in the game, when you're looking for a specific marker on your map, because you can't create your own, temporary marker. That's right. This game won't allow you to create a custom marker so you can easily reach the spot you want but if will create a marker everytime you build a campfire.

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Ther are other issues I could write about (for example the deer sled issue and how you can't reconnect it with a new deer if you managed to lose your original deer to hunger - you simply need to create a new sled) but let's be honest... Did you even read it this far before you clicked away?

Sadly abandoned, had a lot of potential.

The Wild Eight is a roller coaster of a game. It's a survival craft, but also a major imbalance hag that likes to show you just how hard enough it is by throwing you into 3 wolves on the same tile, one of which is a King Wolf, or better yet a bear thrown in the mix. The achievements don't trigger 70% of the time, the quests break more than fine china, I had fun with the Survival and Crafting aspects but pulling teeth compared to other survival crafts.

BUY AT YOUR OWN RISK AS THIS GAME HAS BEEN ABANDONED.

The Wild Eight...oh, the wild eight...the game that once was. I'm going to be firm but fair on this one - this game was really good at the time I was playing it, but that was many months-to-years ago. These days, alas, the only thing wild about this game is the codebase which now seems to have grown weeds, and there's an old rusted lawnmower out front. The lawnmower has no gas. If you ever want to know what the term "bitrot" means then this game is a prime example.

I'll describe it as it once was: You're stuck in a plane crash on a desolate tundra with only your wits and your teammates to survive. You'll have to navigate forests and hunt wild game to find food, and keep the fires lit to stay warm. It's intense survival and it's really engaging just doing that by itself. To top it all off there's something mysterious about this landscape...something eerie and unsettling. Finding an old abandoned bunker you can't help but wonder what happened to the inhabitants of this facility, or what sinister experiments they were engaged in. Alarmingly the reactor that powered this old base has been badly damaged and the cooling systems are unreliable. It's more an annoyance but you have to constantly keep tabs on that reactor to make sure it doesn't breach. It's an annoyance you will tend to though because the alternative is frankly beyond your worst nightmares. Over time you'll come to find the dark truth behind this bizarre depraved experiment...

Now I'll describe it as it is: You get stuck in walls a lot. Chopping down trees tends to throw wood up into the upper stratosphere where it floats tantalizingly in the air and out of reach. Walking into rooms sometimes leaves you in a void in the ceiling where you'll spend the rest of eternity wondering where the map went. That really cool piece of equipment that you found? Yeah, goodnight. That awesome equipment is stuck in the bottom of a pit that you can't possibly reach without turning yourself into pulpy rockface sauce. Worse yet is when it's critical to the story and you can only camp around the hole cursing yourself for going out at night. Then you reload the game only to find the save game is corrupted and you spawn in the outer reaches of the uninitialized memory with items floating around everywhere...and your legs where your head used to be. The dark truth behind this mystery is that they didn't implement software testing, and the horror that awaits is JIRA. I'll spoil the story; the mysterious missing inhabitants are "the development staff". The staff seem to have gone for a long lunch. They've been out to lunch for...over a year now? The lasagna must be really good or something.

I can't say I've ever seen a game that's developed in reverse before, and certainly not like this. Games are supposed to become more polished and more complete over time but this one seems to have gotten worse. At some point I'll assume Frank threw his hands in the air and said, "Ah ♥♥♥♥ it, the code is crap. Let's have a beer." They never recovered from the hangover. At one point I would have recommended this game but I can only recommend it now if you're interested in seeing the result of bad software process in action. You might also enjoy it if you like gazing at logs and deer skins floating out in the upper stratosphere when you should be building a tent. Sometimes the logs you'll be staring at are actually crashdumps, and I do loves me choppin' some dem' illegal memory access exceptions.

-5/10 Gravity goes downwards normally.
-10/10 Doors should lead to the other side of the door, not oblivion.
-inf/10 Software testing is not a "desirable".

Buyer beware: Thar be bugs in them there snowy hills...

14 hours into the game with my husband, and I'm not sure what issues people are referring to, that make the game "unplayable". We have had a few minor glitches/bugs but absolutely nothing that detracted from the game. I can only imagine those reviews were older, because for us, it has run nearly flawlessly (ie: maybe 2 minor glitches in 14 hours)

As a casual gamer, this game has been easy to pick up, interesting to play, and just challenging enough to keep it interesting, not overly frustrating. The game also is very pretty visually, and the multiplayer is fantastic. Very pleased, and looking forward to the numerous updates planned by the Devs.

It starts off strong.
Positives:
- Survival mechanics are pretty great, managing hunger, cold, health.
- Great concept
- Interesting storyline

Negatives:
- Bugs
- Very bland, disappointing ending
- Repetitive and strange pacing

This could have been a really fantastic game. The style is great, the basic mechanics are pretty good.
But it's clear the developers phoned it in pretty early. It's unpolished, buggy, and lacking just... Love.

I was compelled to finish this as I wanted closure on the storyline and to see where this game went. Quality of the game degraded over the course of the story- less voice acting, worse performance, just falling flat on its face.

I loved the premise, I enjoy the mechanics, but the pacing is strange. Harvesting resources tends to be unbalanced- getting leather and tendons vs. wood and ore, it's very skewed and can making crafting vastly unavailable.

I want to recommend this but I just cannot. As great as it started, and as compelling as the concept is, it just ends up flatlining halfway through and feels like a time sink with no resolution.

This is an ABANDONED game. There has not been an update made to it in over a year. The issues it had then are still there now. It can be fun but there are tons of quests that you start and just about a minute later as you have completed it by simply turning on an item you are left with a WTF moment. Your main base is incomplete in my opinion. There are glaring X's on rooms in the building with no access to them and then are rooms you have to hunt down the keys to open. Looks like a project started and never completed to me. There are quests where you work to find a solution to free a person who talks to you then you get everything done and either nothing happens or you find them long dead. How was a dead person talking to me? The game is meant to played co op or multiplayer obviously. There are just too many things you must do just to survive in this very harsh environment. There are things that are normal and then the supernatural appears to remind you the world you are playing is anything but normal. Busy dodging wolves and bears get attacked by a ghost. Walking along and bump into a werewolf (called a mutant once you harvest it but obviously a werewolf in appearance). There are issues with save games not working properly once you make them. Nothing makes you more angry than to have 70 days played in this game and then reload to play some more and just instantly die when you load in or it just puts you in a load loop and you never get in at all. If you enjoy old incomplete games then knock yourself out playing this one.

EDIT/TLDR: this game isn't horrible, just expect to pay for a game that was officially released in its beta stage. Buy it on discount.

As much as I would like to give this game a thumbs up, I don't think I can. While the new experience is enjoyable and figuring out how mechanics work is a good experience, the game overall feels unfinished. Sometimes when it seems like there is a choice there is not, which is very noticeable in the "Goodbye, Luara" mission. Many side quests abruptly end, giving no closure other than some loot, and while foraging is good in the beginning, the large amounts of canned food and peanut butter that never expire just give no incentive to actually "brave the wild." After running around blind for around half an hour, you can find enough loot to give to Scotty and he'll just maybe give you the best armor in the game and a gun, making combat incredibly easy. While the story is captivating and is quite fun to do, exploring and finding bunkers is enough to not have to touch nature anymore. I ended up only using wood and ore to level up my tent cause I never crafted anything except healing salves, as weapons and armor were more than plentiful out in the world. Like I said before, this game had a lot of potential, and while the main quest is enjoyable, actually surviving doesn't end up feeling like a necessity when jamming a med kit in your mouth will fully heal you and holding a portable heater makes you immune to even blizzards. I might just be used to playing other survival games like Don't Starve where the world is always not in your favor, but anyways this is just one player review.