Stranded Deep

Survival games have skyrocketed in popularity over the last few years. Subnautica, The forest, Darkwood and No Man’s Sky are some of the survival games that we loved and enjoyed. We’d love to start our review by adding Stranded Deep to that list.

Stranded deep is a first person survival game that throws you in the middle of nowhere after your plane crashes. The beginning set piece is similar to that of Subnautica and The Forest, and it sets up your adventure in the Pacific Ocean nicely. You quickly escape from the sinking airplane and swim to the surface. Upon reaching the surface, you find a small lifeboat, filled with a few things that can come in handy such as roll of duct tape, a few food cans and a compass. You paddle your way to your first picturesque Island.

Gimme Shelter

Stranded Deep was developed by the Australian studio Beam Team Games for Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Linux. The game introduces you to its procedurally generated world with a simple tutorial that teaches you how to construct the tools you need to survive. You eventually succeed in building a shelter, which can be used as a save point. The game lacks an autosave feature, forcing you to constantly worry about how and when to build your next shelter. This adds a layer of difficulty that makes the game more challenging and engaging.

You’re immediately left to your own devices, as you’re free to move from one island to another using your life raft. Staying on one island for too long is a death wish, as the resources quickly dry up. You’re tasked with maintaining your character’s health, hunger and thirst. As well as trying to protect his body from sunburn.

Let your imagination run wild

Stranded Deep shines through its ability of letting the player’s imagination run wild. During my playthrough, while moving from one island to another, I knew that I had to transport the resources needed to build a shelter. Since as I’ve said before, a shelter is needed to save the game and the limited inventory stopped me from carrying all of the resources with me. In order to circumvent that, I had dropped all of the times onto the floor the raft, and it actually worked.

It’s rare to find yourself relaxing or taking a break in Stranded Deep, as the game is constantly throwing new challenges at you. For example, while paddling to the new island, a shark was lurking in the waters underneath me. It wasn’t long before he started bumping the life raft, making me fall head first into the water. It was an intense encounter as I was trying to push my life raft to safety, which was now upside down. Scurrying and hurrying before the shark comes and devours me.

Eat, Drink, Cover your Head and Stay Healthy

Stranded Deep isn’t all about island hopping and drinking coconut milk though, swimming underwater is a great experience as you get to discover all kinds of fish like cod, tuna, and even sea turtles.  However, don’t swim for too long as there are always two or three sharks circling around you, even when you’re so close to shore. Thus, once again, even the relaxing act of swimming is a tense and dangerous thing to do in Stranded Deep.

To add to an already challenging experience, the tools you make are worn out when you use them. Trying to keep your character’s needs satisfied is like a circus act, trying to balance a thousand things at once.

Weirdly enough, water is one of the most difficult resource to gather, at least during the beginning hours. You have to rely on drinking coconuts, but an excess of them causes food poisoning, which can be fatal. You can create a water still that helps you to gather more clean water but it isn’t very reliable.

Raise the stakes

The game also offers the ability to choose between a male or female character, although it doesn’t affect the game whatsoever. You can also raise the stakes by turning on permadeath, but we shudder to think what kind of a glutton for pain you’d have to be to do that. The game is already difficult enough without having the risk of permanent death.

Unlike other survival games, Stranded Deep doesn’t offer a creative mode. However, it does give you the option to turn the sharks and the snakes into docile creatures. Meaning they stop dealing damage to you, which we highly recommend you turn on, at least for the snakes.

One thing that’s disappointing about the game is the lack of any goals. The game doesn’t guide you or holds your hands; it doesn’t tell you where to go or what to do next. Your only motivation for progressing is your desire to discover all of the tools and vehicles that you can construct and create.

Graphically, the game’s environments are absolutely wonderful and beautiful. However, some of the textures can look ugly up close, but it’s not a total deal breaker. The islands and the oceans surrounding them are populated with a variety of animals and creatures.

Overall,

If you’re interested in a challenging survival game, similarly to Subnautica, then we highly recommend you check out Stranded Deep. It may not be as deep and expansive as some of its competition, but it stills provide tons of hours of fun. That is if you’re brave enough to face the curveballs, it constantly throws at you.

For more of our reviews, click here. If you liked our review, follow us on Instagram to always stay up to date on the latest Ichiplayer posts.

You should play Stranded Deep if you:

• Enjoy survival games and crafting resources
• Enjoy an open ended experience
• Don’t mind the lack of direction
• Don’t mind a few shallow mechanics
• Don’t mind constantly managing your character’s needs

Stranded Deep’s Score

7.5/10