Desolate Frontiers

Desolate Frontiers is a very unusual game because I am not really playing it like a normal survival game or a normal MMO. I am running a logistics company in a future where a climate disaster has broken apart the United States, Canada and Mexico. My job is to move vehicles and cargo between isolated settlements while dealing with weather, resources, people and whatever happens along the roads. The whole thing is built around idle logistics, so I can set up a route and let my convoy keep moving while I come back later to see what happened. That slower pace takes some getting used to, but I like how different it feels. The convoy system is the part I find most interesting. I can choose vehicles, load them with cargo and passengers, plan routes and send them out into the world. I then have to think about what each settlement needs and whether a journey is actually worth making. It is not just about getting from one point to another because I am also managing fuel, vehicle condition, trade and the resources needed to keep everything running. I like that the game makes something as simple as delivering supplies feel like an actual business rather than just another quest marker. The world is also a big part of why I kept playing. Desolate Frontiers is set around fifty years after a climate catastrophe, and the game goes for a solarpunk look rather than the usual ruined wasteland covered in grey buildings and abandoned cars. There are settlements with their own needs, extreme weather and different people to interact with. The NPCs are powered by language model systems, which is a pretty unusual idea, and I can have conversations with them while building relationships or finding new opportunities. It does make the world feel more reactive, although the quality of those interactions can depend on what I am asking and what is happening in the game. The biggest weakness for me is that the game is very slow. A lot of the time I am waiting for a convoy to finish travelling or for something else to happen, and there is only so much I can actively control once everything has been set up. That is clearly intentional, but it means I have to be in the mood for an idle game before I can really enjoy it. I also think the Early Access state is important because there are still unfinished areas, bugs and systems that are being changed. A major update has already reworked settlements, trading, vehicle parts and the interface, so the game is clearly still finding its final shape. The free part is also handled in a way I actually appreciate. The base game can be played for free, with a subscription available for the full set of features rather than constantly throwing individual purchases at me. There are no normal microtransactions, and the premium expansion adds things like unlimited vehicles, warehouses and multiple convoys rather than simply selling me little boosts. I still think the subscription is something I have to consider because the limitations become more important as I get further into the logistics side, but I prefer this approach to a game that keeps asking me to buy small things every few minutes. I also like that I can play it in a very relaxed way. I can spend a few minutes setting up deliveries and then leave the game alone while the convoys keep moving. There is a persistent shared world, trading, missions, vehicle upgrades and relationships to work on, so there is more underneath the idle system than I first expected. At the same time, I think some of the potential is still waiting to be properly developed. The game is currently in Early Access, and even the developers describe it as very much a work in progress, so I would not judge it as though it were already a finished MMO. Overall, Desolate Frontiers is a really interesting experiment that I think works best when I treat it as a logistics game first and an MMO second. I like planning routes, managing convoys, trading between settlements and slowly building up my little network across the ruined world. The slow pace and Early Access roughness definitely hold it back, and there are times when I wish I had more to actively do while waiting for a convoy to arrive. Still, the setting, idle design and NPC system give it a personality that I do not see in many other games. It is not quite there yet, but I think there is a genuinely good idea underneath it. Rating: 6.6/10