Beyond Contact

I do need to give this game more of a chance, but man, a survival game with heroes to unlock is a bad mix in my opinion. But that is not my problem, the controls and UI are unintuitive and clunky. I started playing, and it said to rotate view with 'Q' and 'E', which I thought was odd, but the top down view indicated to me that it should be played with a controller, and that does fix camera interaction, but then selecting gear, creating anything, or researching is a nightmare. I do not know how this game is supposed to be played. It might work better with a flight stick, IDK.

Really don't buy this one, I'm currently refunding. It look alright for the first minutes but it feels soulless and void of any intellectual actual gameplay. You are just going to be running around to the same stuff for hours without much progress.

Even on sale, not really worth.

It's just mediocre

低配版太空饥荒

[b]Completion:[/b] Campaign finished, 100% quests, 100% map explored, nearly all research, 13/29 achievements [b]Overall Score:[/b] 7/10 [hr][/hr] [h1]A good co-op survival game with a strong story hook, held back by grind and awkward combat[/h1] Recommended if you like co-op survival-crafting games with a real story arc and do not mind some grind. [hr][/hr] [h2]Context[/h2] Platform: PC Controls: controller Playtime at review: ~24.8 hours Mode played: co-op [hr][/hr] [h2]What This Game Is in 2-3 Sentences[/h2] This is a sci-fi survival-crafting game that starts with exploration, resource gathering, research, and progression through hostile biomes. As the campaign moves forward, the focus shifts more toward saving the planet, pushing the main path from discovery into attack preparation and light defensive setup. In co-op, that structure works well enough to keep the campaign moving, even when the grind gets heavy. The core loop: explore → gather → research → craft → survive/defend → push story What makes it interesting/unique: the story is more memorable than expected for this type of game, and the research system ties progression to very specific farming goals, like gathering stone for mineral data or hunting creatures for organic data. [hr][/hr] [h2]What Is Especially Good[/h2] 1) The biomes feel distinct and give progression a clear structure, especially when new hazards force you to research and craft the next protective suit before moving on. 2) The story is genuinely the strongest reason to keep going, because the campaign evolves from simple exploration into a bigger planet-saving objective instead of staying in one survival loop forever. [hr][/hr] [h2]What Is Problematic[/h2] 1) Controller combat feels bad. Movement, menus, and navigation are fine, but in fights your attacks often go in the direction you are running instead of landing cleanly on the enemy, while mouse aim is clearly more precise. 2) The game talks up base defense more than it really delivers. In practice, defenses barely matter beyond something simple like a fence, and most of the actual work is still done by the player, which makes that whole system feel half-developed. [hr][/hr] [h2]Technical State[/h2] FPS / stability / loading: stable, fast, and smooth overall Bugs: rare Note: no crashes or hard bugs, but co-op progression and story delivery feel poorly thought out. Only the host keeps the save, one player can miss the ending, and some conversations can effectively lock one player out of parts of the narrative. [hr][/hr] [h2]Price / Value / Monetization[/h2] Full price: hard to recommend unless you are exactly the target audience, because even at 1.0 it still feels a bit like a polished paid beta without the bugs On sale: worth it, because the story, presentation, and co-op campaign are good enough to carry the weaker parts Microtransactions / DLC: there is no monetization problem here, but unlockable alternate characters feel oddly limited in campaign because they function more like skins/skillsets while the story still treats you as the default protagonist [hr][/hr] [h2]Summary in 2 Sentences[/h2] Who I recommend it to: players who want a co-op survival game with an interesting story, distinct biomes, and research-driven progression. Who I do not recommend it to: players who hate grind, want strong controller combat, or expect base defense to be a major and fully satisfying part of the game.

This is my first comment on any game here on steam and i make it because the game deserves it. I almost gave up on this game until i changed one thing (the difficulty) which made it great in my personal opinion. I love these type of survival games. I enjoy that struggle starting off with nothing and eventually advance enough to thrive. On normal difficulty i was unsuccessful because the need for food and keeping warm etc was too all consuming. I kept thinking It's fine I'll unlock some tech soon that will rebalance things but it didn't happen. I looked at the comments here on steam and learned that there is no easy solution other than get a cooker to cook food as you go etc so i did this but the need for food is still too time consuming. The worst thing was a review i read in the comments here which said 'even on easy it's too hard.' That was the worst advice ever because I almost quit and left the game thinking that 'I enjoy the survival struggle in these type of games but here its just too much time spent eating and keeping warm etc with no fun or time for much else.' so I was about to quit and something made me just quickly try out easy difficulty. Everything changed. So glad I tried it despite the comment suggesting it was still too hard. Finally i could enjoy the rest of the game. To be honest it did make it a bit too easy ultimately although that is only my personal opinion but that was better than throwing the game away and i was able to finally explore the entire map. People if you do struggle on normal difficulty, before you give up just switch to easy. Really fun game in the end well worth the time.

I bought this on sale, but I was skeptical because of the reviews were pretty poor regarding camera and controls. I did find that true on the controller because you use right stick for moving the camera AND zooming, so you got a lot of unexpected and unhelpful camera behavior. However, once I moved to WASD, I found it far easier and very reliable. The isometric view is good, but I can see how people might want to zoom out or angle more. I am REALLY enjoying the game. There's lots to do and build. Based on the screenshots, there's so much more! It reminds me a bit of Aethus, which I really liked. The story seems engaging. The map shows plenty of resources and filtering options. I'm 6 hours , but it hasn't felt grindy (yet?).

«Beyond Contact: До контакта с разработчиками они, видимо, не достучались» Решил я значит, махнуть на край галактики, подальше от земной суеты ипотеки и начальника-дурака. Думал, сейчас прилечу на экзотическую планетку, буду там эликсиры варить, с инопланетными формами жизни чаи гонять, открою свой филиал «Пятерочки»… Но что-то пошло не так с первых же минут. Плюсов, как ни старался, я не нашел. Честно обыскал всю капсулу приземления — ноль. Видимо, их вместе с нормальным интерфейсом где-то по пути потеряли. Зато минусы посыпались на голову быстрее, чем метеоритный дождь. Начнем с того, что UI здесь словно рисовал робот под кислотой. Все менюшки какие-то нечеловеческие, разобраться в них сложнее, чем объяснить бабушке, что такое TikTok. А карта! Это отдельный вид искусства. Смотреть на неё без слез невозможно — как будто пытаешься разглядеть маршрут в тумане через грязное стекло. И чтобы просто посмотреть по сторонам, нужно жать Q и E. Видимо, разработчики решили, что свободный поворот камеры мышкой — это слишком смелая инновация для 2023 года. Предлагаю в следующем патче прикрутить управление стрелочками на клавиатуре, а то совсем легко стало. Крафт и прокачка — это отдельная песня. Ты чувствуешь себя не покорителем космоса, а первоклассником, который пытается собрать кубик Рубика с закрытыми глазами. Интерфейс изучения рецептов сделан так, что хочется вместо крафта просто лечь и полежать. Всё нелогично, всё не на своих местах. Создаётся стойкое ощущение, что гайдбук по игре писал Шредингер — пока ты не откроешь крафт, ты не знаешь, есть там этот рецепт или его нет. И самое главное открытие: игра не сложная, она просто душная. Это как стоять в очереди в МФЦ в скафандре. Тебе не страшно, тебе не интересно, тебе просто душно и хочется домой. Никакого вызова, никаких проблем — просто нудная возня с интерфейсами, картой и кнопками поворота. В общем, если хотите проверить свои нервы на прочность и узнать, каково это — бороться с интерфейсом, а не с враждебной средой — добро пожаловать. Лично я улетаю обратно. Буду ждать контакта, который действительно за гранью.

I will be honest, I did have fun with this game in the beginning. The exploration, crafting, researching and others felt fun. But as the game went on it felt like a slog. Resource gathering feels like a chore, too many items are expensive to build, most of the research does not feel worth it, most of the resources felt like junk and the story feels like its dragging on near the end. What finally made me uninstall it is after finding out Quinn is the only voiced character for the story and the others are now, which is a shame since I would have love to see the story from their perspectives.