The Solus Project Preview

Have you ever been halfway through a really good packet of crisps, reached into the bag and found your fingers grasping at nothing but thin air, greasy tinfoil and a sense of self-loathing? That’s what it’s like to come to the end of The Solus Project. For a game that bills itself as a survival title, players can complete this chapter, the first part, in just three hours or so.

The release of The Solus Project into Early Access comes at an opportune time - with The Martian still fresh in people’s minds, a little dash of space survival could be just the thing to grasp people’s attention. Granted, though the premise of the game is your fairly bog-standard “stranded in space” story, it’s not the writing (or the unfortunate dead-pan voice acting) that astonishes.

The Solus Project is a beautiful looking game. Upon arrival on the strange planet in which the game takes place, I ended up standing and staring at the pieces of falling debris from the atmosphere above. Your ship, carrying your protagonist and his crew-mates, crash lands on a strange alien world filled with unknown flora and fauna. The developers must have made a visit to the Giant’s Causeway because much of the starting area in Solus apes that eerie hexagonal-rock landscape.

From the start Solus doesn’t give the player much direction. Aside from your constant companion, a PDA that displays your health, hydration levels, sleep deprivation, calorie count and warmth, you’re left to yourself to explore. After a rudimentary tutorial on how to use fire (and a rather nifty teleportation tool) markers are placed ahead of you to investigate the planet further, munching on space plants and drinking cave water.

Caves come in abundance, too. players might be rather disappointed that after crafting such a well-made skybox the developers decide to shove them into endless cave tunnels and underground labyrinths. For yes, you may have guessed it already, the planet is not uninhabited. When you are outside, a realistic day and night cycle will keep players on their toes, trying to find warmth and heat, diving into caves to avoid destructive weather systems.

I hesitate to call the game a true survival title. Yes there are a myriad of ways you must look after your protagonist yet each is surprisingly easy to maintain. Even on the harder difficulty settings there were only a few times I came close to dehydration, starvation or pneumonia. Along with its relatively small story length (three hours if you bomb down the objectives, maybe eight if you explore) the game does very much feel like piece cut from a larger puzzle.

Atmospherically the game nails it. Whoever designed the music for The Solus Project needs a slap on the back and a lollipop for good behaviour. The music that accompanies your exploration is top-notch and really helps to set the tone. When out in the wilderness exploring open areas it becomes light and airy while in the depths of the caves and tombs it changes, at once being claustrophobic and tense. When your protagonist is ailing from one of his many needs the music will pulse with urgency or, rather eerily, serenade his last moments with soft piano strokes as he slips away into unconsciousness.

Developers Teotl should be pleased with the performance of this game. Despite being in Early Access the game runs buttery smooth, failing one crash (that I admit was my fault). Even during the more visually intense moments I never noticed a perceptible drop in quality or speed.

The ending splash at the conclusion of The Solus Project says it all. This game is part one of an ambitious project by the developers to create a living alien world to explore and investigate. For a game that has just reached Early Access and (at the time of writing) costs under £10, any space-lover would be a fool not to pick it up - if it were just a few hours longer we’d have quite a gem on our hands here. Nonetheless: attractive, atmospheric, at times tense and dramatic, The Solus Project is one not to miss.