Sheltered 2 PC Review

Unicube studios released the first Sheltered game back in 2015. It was relatively well received with various people citing the games crafting system and overall gritty take on the ‘Fallout Shelter’ formula. Its sequel, Sheltered 2, follows similar principles to the first game. Survive in the post apocalypse by any means necessary.

Part Xcom, part Fallout Shelter, and all of the classic survival tropes are there. Hunger bars, thirst bars, and tiredness bars all have to be monitored in this game to the nth degree. Graphically the game is so far ahead of the previous title it isn’t even a fair comparison. Textures of both people and objects have been improved and whilst they don’t match with some of the other great games to come out recently, they are still a substantial improvement worthy of a mention.

But we need to get back on track to what makes this game matter. Gameplay. Survival games live and die by their gameplay and Sheltered 2 is no exception. The game starts with you having to create your own set of survivors, these aren’t the only survivors you are stuck with, but they are a core beginning to your game.
 

Above you can see the character creation screen, there are many various options that players can take in this character creator, adding various strengths and weaknesses to your various characters is actually surprisingly engaging and also serves to keep you somewhat emotionally invested in these characters.

The character creator is limited in terms of appearance, but when it comes to stats the game is brimming with opportunity. It remains somewhat unfortunate that there is no direct information as to what each stat really does as players have to, unfortunately, fumble and figure it out, the game has preset to compensate, but the problems are still there.

One thing I particularly enjoyed about the character creator is the weaknesses. I love having trade-offs for characters' strengths and many of the weaknesses in Sheltered 2 are fun and interesting leading to incredible gameplay moments, whether it is simply a change in the weather causes or something you only notice amidst a tense fight.
 

Once in the game, it becomes a little more complicated. First of all the tutorial for the game is abysmal and provides little to no help besides some of the more simplistic tasks. The crafting in the game, while necessary, is needlessly tedious as you go back and forth looking at what objects you need to craft, and navigating numerous menus. Crafting speed is also quite slow which to some may be a good thing, but to me, it felt like it was taking too long and grew tiresome rather quickly.

Allowing players to automate things like eating, drinking and sleeping is a great choice that really improves the games' quality of life allowing you to focus on the more important things which do innately point at the tedious crafting system.

After all, this comes the meat and bones of the game. Factions and exploration. These go hand in hand and there is a reason for that. Starting with exploration is the best part of the game hand’s down. Planning out your routes as you look at stats and arm your characters is always engaging as your nerves slowly get the better of you as you wait to send your brave wanderer out to face the encroaching wasteland.

Planning the routes and scavenging for supplies is very fun and links to the most interesting part of the game.

Factions are the kind of the core of Sheltered 2 as you explore the wastes, you will meet other factions and they will either like you, hate you, or just be purely indifferent. The first time you leave your territory and encounter a faction is a tense and interesting situation, you are cautious about who they could be or what they want.

Depending on their starting disposition towards you, your encounter can go very differently and your choices in who you befriend and who you go against have massive ramifications throughout your game. While some of the dialogue is incredibly clunky, it serves its purpose in driving you as the player towards your choice of faction alliances. 

If you wish to fight these factions you have the ability to do so in a turn based combat system similar to games like Xcom or Divinity Original Sin II. While the combat is not quite as polished as those games, it does serve a purpose and because of the amount of time spent with your characters does become a tense exchange depending on the circumstances of who will win.

In addition to this, the friendly factions can provide you with quests. It’s an interesting concept, but the issue with randomly generated quests immediately shows its face. There’s nothing like collection quests in all games and going around gathering nails isn’t exactly the most riveting quest and kind of knocks the faction enjoyment on the head.

In fact, aside from assigning quests, the factions only have 3 more potential interactions. Those being: Fight, Flee, or Trade. This can quickly become somewhat dull as you tediously read the same dialogue or become cornered in a fight by the same faction repeatedly.

This does lead to another point as well, the game is undeservingly challenging. Tough fights can lead to your best character dying meaning your 3 hours save has just been ruined, some people may find that enjoyable, and to be part of the game's appeal, personally, I don’t.

Overall, Sheltered 2 is exactly what it needed to be. A substantial improvement on its previous iteration. While it still retains some of its clunky whether it be gameplay or dialogue. It does also possess those gems of fun when you win a fight or craft something that makes your life way easier and slowly fleshes out this imaginary world that your characters are inhabiting. Sheltered 2 is an oddly addictive game that will no doubt consume hours of your time.
 

Joshua Burt (@JoshuaBurt123),
Senior Editor, NoobFeed