Don't Starve Together: Console Edition PlayStation 4 Review

Darkness, illness, desperation and insanity await. Don’t Starve Together is now available for PS4, which means, seasoned players will gratefully accept this new entry in the series, while new players can experience the game in all of its glory, with all the add-ons of its latest version.

In a time where survival and crafting games seem to have come to stay and more and more options become available, Don’t Starve rises as an attractive and addictive option for players who like their sandbox extra sandy. The game puts you in the shoes of Wilson (or any of the other characters available in the get-go version), a Victorian era gentleman who also happens to be scientist. Wilson is transported, by the might of a strangely polite demon, to another dimension, in which he is left stranded with the sole purpose of surviving and thriving in this eerie place.

As with many games of this breed, narrative elements are almost non-existent and surviving and cruising through the game becomes a painfully punishing exercise of trial and error. Consequences become increasingly harsh when mistakes are made in a more advanced state of progress. As with other survival games, whenever you die, you’ll lose the progress gained and materials gathered or things crafted, which turns the first parts of the game into a constant grinding process. There is no tutorial whatsoever on how anything works, so the first moments of the game become a test for your intuition. Will that kill me? Can I eat it? Can I kill it and, if so, how? What happens if? These, and all sorts of other questions will be present in your mind every step of the way. Eventually, if you can make it long enough, you’ll be able to craft better and more useful things, including an alchemy lab and even a settlement, with farms and forts included. You can even get to experience seasonal change, given you survive long enough. This is way harder than it seems, not only because of the steep learning curve or because of how the environment can affect you, but also due to your sanity is being in peril. If your mental health drops, then nightmarish shadow creatures will attack you alongside the regular dangers you end up facing. This amounts to a different layer in game difficulty, as well as providing uniqueness to the theme of the game.

Don’t Starve Together also adds a multiplayer mode for the game, so you can combine resources and energy with friends or players online in order to increase your chances of survival. Something most players will find very attractive is the inclusion of a split-screen mode for local multiplayer. By doing this, the shared experience can be enjoyed both online and offline. Perhaps the most interesting thing is the level of stress this can create among players, because, when pressure adds up, problems will surely arise, and that can only translate into more immersive gameplay. The lack of storyline will actually be something amazing as well, because players can create their own story among themselves.

The port for PS4 does not drift far away from the original PC version. Perhaps, the only real challenge for players of previous versions, on the PC, will be to adjust themselves to the Dual-Shock controller instead of the mouse and keys, but, in this sense, the team behind the port has made an incredible job making useful use of with the configuration of the controller. Some actions are even smoother with the help of the two thumbsticks and the existing buttons in the pad. Once that is sorted out, the gaming experience is actually quite smooth and enjoyable, and the controls turn very comfortable and easy to use and understand.

Overall, Don’t Starve Together is an ingenious and challenging survival crafting game. It’s sandbox gameplay will definitively channel games such as Terraria, Minecraft and Ark, while its aesthetics channel those of Tim Burton. The atmosphere generated by the game really bonds well with its theme as well as the gameplay. The eerie but adorable cartoon style generates a loveable aura around the characters and visual elements of the world, but also creates a somewhat uncomfortable sentiment of tenderness and childish nightmares. IF you are into survival or crafting games, then Don’t Starve is a must buy. And, if you have dominated the genre and want to try something different, then Don’t Starve Together is the answer to the question “what would happen if me and my friends would be cast away or stranded in the most horrendous place imaginable?” Well, you no longer have to wonder. Spoiler alert, you’ll most certainly die, but you will also have a blast while trying not to.

Don’t Starve Together poses a challenge not only to your survival skills, but also to your social skills, leadership and, ultimately, to your friendship; after all, nobody wants to die because Roger forgot to bring enough wood or because Michael overcooked the food and now everybody has typhoid; you know, things that happen during camping, but with demonic creatures waiting in every dark corner of a nightmarish forest. 

Sarwar Ron, NoobFeed
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