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Looking like it's from the early 2000s, Beyond Mankind might be an interesting sci-fi action adventure coming from the team behind the Viking Conquest DLC for Mount & Blade.

Not trying to be mean about the style of it, but games back in the early 2000s had a certain look and feel about them, one that a lot of modern games do genuinely lack. Beyond Mankind: The Awakening aims to revive these games with us being told to think of it like "Fallout meets Spec Ops: The Line", set in a "post-apocalyptic world sporting a mature and deep narrative, rich exploration, tense combat and immersive RPG mechanics".

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"Beyond Mankind places importance not only on the player's interaction but also the narrative, which is the fabric that keeps a game world together.

NPCs are a fundamental tool to achieve both objectives. You can talk, persuade, intimidate, or flirt with them. They are the ones who weave the story in which the player is immersed, and the player's decisions affect their lives, sometimes literally." — developer Brytenwalda.

Originally due out this month, they said it's delayed until August to allow time for voice overs along with localization into several new languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese.

Features:

  • Intriguing and dark narrative - Beyond Mankind provides a unique experience in which you will discover a post-apocalyptic world through the main story and secondary quests shaped by your decisions.
  • A rich and dynamic world - Help human civilization, exiled in space, avoid extinction while exploring an Earth devastated by nuclear war.
  • Unique character generation - Create a character based on DNA and culture selection, then accumulate experience to improve your abilities.
  • Complex social interactions - Experience personality-based kinship, loyalty, and romance with other characters.
  • Real dilemmas - Face problems that may not always have a completely positive solution, let alone an obvious one.
  • Challenging survival mechanics - Explore, collect or hunt for food, craft tools, light fires for cooking and warmth, and construct a shelter. Above all, monitor your psychological state.
  • 3D inventory management - Pick your resources at your camp. Storage space is limited, so choosing well can make the difference between life and death.

It's releasing on August 31 with Linux support on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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10 comments

scaine May 21, 2021
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That's a weirdly underwhelming trailer for what looks like a pretty sweet retro-inspired game! I hope they do the RPG elements some justice as I find that those can carry me through any criticism of the shooting elements or weakness in the story.
Nanobang May 21, 2021
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Beautifully recreates the look and feel of those RPG classics from the early aughts. I remember playing Deux Ex (only $0.97 US at Steam right now, btw like three or four times straight through, back in the day. Wishlisted!


Last edited by Nanobang on 21 May 2021 at 12:20 pm UTC
slaapliedje May 21, 2021
Most games these days are too shiny. Overuse of shaders or sonething.
Nocifer May 21, 2021
Looks nice and the premise is good, too bad the trailer is indeed a bit underwhelming in that it doesn't actually tell us much about a game that's supposedly ready to release. I mean story-wise and gameplay-wise (beyond being an FPS, at least partly). Also, it seems juust a bit janky/clunky at some points.

What's in there though gave me pleasant vibes of Half Life, Deus Ex, Crysis, Alien vs Predator and a bit of System Shock 2 - i.e. pure '00s bliss. Also, for some reason it left me with a strong urge to replay STALKER :P
denyasis May 21, 2021
Quoting: NociferAlso, for some reason it left me with a strong urge to replay STALKER :P
Yaaasssss
14 May 22, 2021
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Well, I actually like modern graphics. This game's graphics were not terribly consistent in the trailer. Some of the outdoor scenes looked much better than indoor scenes. Yes, reminded me of Half-Life 2 or SWAT 4 age of graphics. I can readily admit that I'd rather look at a game like the newer Tomb Raider series to name a Linux supported one. Going outside of those bounds, I recently finished Outriders on PS5 and I was constantly impressed at how good it looked and smooth it ran. Yeah, I also can appreciate a simpler look. I played RimWorld yesterday and today. But I have a pretty hard time playing an FPS that looks old. This game looks iffy to me as far as graphics go. That's me anyway.
slaapliedje May 24, 2021
Quoting: denyasis
Quoting: NociferAlso, for some reason it left me with a strong urge to replay STALKER :P
Yaaasssss
Did you see a new Stalker game is coming out? I should go back and play the others, as whenever I tried to play them back in the day, it seemed my computer didn't run fast enough, or I cranked up the settings too high for it to run smoothly, and it felt jerky. Though I kind of always blamed the engine for that.
denyasis May 24, 2021
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: denyasis
Quoting: NociferAlso, for some reason it left me with a strong urge to replay STALKER :P
Yaaasssss
Did you see a new Stalker game is coming out? I should go back and play the others, as whenever I tried to play them back in the day, it seemed my computer didn't run fast enough, or I cranked up the settings too high for it to run smoothly, and it felt jerky. Though I kind of always blamed the engine for that.

I did. I hope it's good. I played the whole trilogy and part of anomaly this fall. Ran great in wine. First one is still my favorite, but Anomaly is good too.


Quoting: 14This game's graphics were not terribly consistent in the trailer. Some of the outdoor scenes looked much better than indoor scenes. Yes, reminded me of Half-Life 2 or SWAT 4 age of graphics.

Yeah, they didn't seem too consistent. My cutoff for "old FPS graphics" is more in the middle late 90's (Thief, system shock 2), although I think it varies heavily depending on art direction and level design. Some age very well, some not so much.


Last edited by denyasis on 24 May 2021 at 9:22 pm UTC
slaapliedje May 26, 2021
Quoting: denyasis
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: denyasis
Quoting: NociferAlso, for some reason it left me with a strong urge to replay STALKER :P
Yaaasssss
Did you see a new Stalker game is coming out? I should go back and play the others, as whenever I tried to play them back in the day, it seemed my computer didn't run fast enough, or I cranked up the settings too high for it to run smoothly, and it felt jerky. Though I kind of always blamed the engine for that.

I did. I hope it's good. I played the whole trilogy and part of anomaly this fall. Ran great in wine. First one is still my favorite, but Anomaly is good too.


Quoting: 14This game's graphics were not terribly consistent in the trailer. Some of the outdoor scenes looked much better than indoor scenes. Yes, reminded me of Half-Life 2 or SWAT 4 age of graphics.

Yeah, they didn't seem too consistent. My cutoff for "old FPS graphics" is more in the middle late 90's (Thief, system shock 2), although I think it varies heavily depending on art direction and level design. Some age very well, some not so much.
Speaking of things not aging well, and even at the time. Ultima IX went through so many different iterations, I'm surprised it didn't end up like Duke Nukem Forever (as opposed to dnf, the replacement for yum). When it was 3dfx only initially I thought it looked pretty great, but then didn't play that far into it until they'd released the DirectX patch for it, and then you got things that looked great... and things that looked like garbage, as they were very low resolution and flat.

I'm not usually one at least that'll stop playing a game if the graphics are bad. If the gameplay / story line is good enough, I'll stick with it. Though lately I have the 'too many games' syndrome and tend to get distracted too easily to win anything.
denyasis May 28, 2021
Yeah. I think the biggest offenders for me T the time we the games that tried to do other open spaces. But, the engine and cards weren't good enough to give a lot of detail or objects so you ended up with these large areas with a few repeating textures and not much else.

Battle zone 2 comes to mind and I can remember others, but not thier names. Parts of Morrowind and KOTOR also suffered a little bit as time progresses
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