Plains of Pain Reviews

Well when I'm wrong I'm wrong. I gave this game a thumbs down and it was not Devs fault. Some Valve PC jockey in mommies basement was the reason I got a ban for "Asking the same type of question 9 days later forgetting I had asked a similar question" apparently he got all excited drooled on his keyboard at a chance to ban someone instead of locking the thread and saying "hey we consider this spam" I would have said "Oh my bad Im old and forgetful" Anyway GAME IS AWSOME! I am really enjoying it even though some issues are in game due to development but it is well worth it too purchase. I apologize Devs Valve pissed me off.

Super fun, for an alpha release, its pretty stable

Hey.. this a really cool post apocalyptic game. so far enjoying the reality of travelling through the wastelands. discovering new settlements .. the cars you can build are cool .. love sounds.. the baddies in the desert are hilarious . there are 4 official servers online and a number of community servers . also co op and single player modes. great game , keep up updating regular.. good job.. try it out !! it a Gem

This is a great game. Probably one of the most slept on game in the survival genre. Truly unique in today's gaming atmosphere and it only keeps getting better. To think PoP is developed by 3 crazy devs somewhere in a basement in the Czech Republic is wild!!! They are steadily working to continuously improve this game, not to get rich, but so we have a quality game to play. It's absolutely a labor of love and it shows! It's not the most graphical game, but there are times when the scene on the screen is absolutely gorgeous and the devs have this weird ability to nail the ambiance. It's not the most in depth game in the genre, but the more you play, the more ways you learn to play the game. This game has been described as Kenshi meets Mad Max, but there is so much more to that. There is truly nothing like PoP on steam. It's a whole experience with everything you want in a survival game! Character development, base building, flying vehicles, MMO, PVP, vast maps to explore, different biomes, environmental danger, brutal and unforgiving enemies, and so much more. Not to mention, there is no current level cap. The game never ends!

This game is gritty and hard, has great potential

I bought this game and immediately binged it for 23 hours. I just woke up after a long 14 hour slumber and I'm ready to go again. This game has the goods, and is highly binge-able. I've already gotten better than $1/hr in my first session. I don't understand why its not more popular.

A little grindy but a lot of fun and sounds like the devs are doing a lot of updates. Ill edit this as I learn more.

Great game, I've been playing since the early days, it only gets better.

Plains of Pain was something I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did - it appeared on my radar from a random YouTuber I wasn't subscribed to; but the game looked interesting enough so I gave the video a watch. Over-all thoughts and TL;DR at the bottom. I'll be frank; the game's combat and systems looked 'jank', but there was something about the game's systems and free open world to explore that drew me in near instantly - so I bought the game to give it a go. What awaited me was a flawed but very promising early access title that - once I understood it's fundamental gameplay loop and systems - sunk hours and hours into a brutal world that holds no hands. It offers itself to be lived in with settlements that you as the player can try to rebuild, hordes of lowlifes and bandits that will constantly try to rip that safety away from you - and a mystery of your origins and friends you wake next to. COMBAT; The combat in Plains of Pain as of the time of me writing this review is not polished. Melee is a dance of trying to hit your opponent while they're locked in an attack animation that missed you, and doesn't really 'feel' great as there is no 'dodge' or 'block' button so the only way for you to avoid attacks is running around or away from them- but it is functional and serves it's purpose of providing a dangerous world to interact with. Ranged combat is fine and I have little to no complaints about it's functionality. FRIENDLY FIRE; This game has friendly fire for everyone. No matter how much rep you grind with the Dustborns or anyone else - if there is a lowlife grunt between you and them; they WILL dome you and kill you with a ranged weapon. This is something of a gripe for me, as you have to pro-actively make sure you're out of the way of your allies otherwise they'll kill you with no remorse. Don't get me wrong however, as I believe this system fundamentally is great in concept - as lowlife grunts and other enemies are prone to killing each other accidentally as well which provides a sense of 'immersion' to the game's world. There is no hand-holding for everyone, fatality is fair and ready for all. If I could make one request when it comes to this; it would be that factions players have high rep with would at least attempt not to shoot their weapons if the player is within the way. ANIMATIONS; One thing that struck out at me and nearly ripped me out of the experience of this game is the animations. Lowlife grunts will attack you - and while they attempt to smack the life out of you, they will morph their bodies and contort in ways that just looks incredibly goofy. I imagine this is just a stand-in for better animations down the line, given the game's early-access nature - it is something I forgive and look over with the hopes it will be fixed and improved in time/ Other than that, all animations in the game serve their purpose - some may feel stiff and rigid but ultimately they're service-able. CRAFTING; The back and forth of salvaging and crafting in this game is a core loop and drive for the game. First you'll want to make storage, next you'll want to make something to harvest stone and metal, eventually you'll need equipment like backpacks, weapons and vehicles etc. You won't know everything the game has to offer, so you'll be traveling to different towns and merchants to find blueprints to help facilitate this loop - and it does feel quite rewarding, especially when you get into building up one of these towns, or daring to create your own once you're deeper into the game. SETTLEMENTS & NPCs; The different towns you find are where you find merchants and production structures. Some of these production structures you'll have to help them rebuild - in which you'll be able to reap the rewards from once you do. This doesn't come cheap, however; as you WILL have to donate food and water to aid in these NPCs working on the production structures and some of those structures will need certain items to maintain their production of resources. Within these settlements, some offer the opportunity to build a Barracks or Sniper Tower - which provides a comfort of defense against lowlifes and bandits if you get them up and running. NPCs will spawn from them and patrol the town to defend against would-be-aggressors. I find that Settlements are a core part of the progression as the further in the game you go, you'll find more merchants and production structures that help aid in progressing what tools, weapons, structure blueprints and vehicles you use. VEHICLES; There are vehicles in this game that you'll find damaged at some of the settlements you find. These will take a lot of time to build, and I honestly recommend skipping the first duster vehicles at the beginning Frank & Ron settlement to find something that has a lot more storage and fuel capacity. You can upgrade these vehicles to use less fuel, drive faster, have more health and storage etc and I will highly recommend to at least upgrade your vehicle to use less fuel at least once or twice before you take it on the road. Once you have vehicles unlocked - it unlocks the possibilities to travel to further settlements and return to your home settlement much faster, and more importantly biomes and zones way further from spawn point that unlocks new content to discover. QUESTS; This game provides a quest system which has some intrigue when you speak to Ron and Frank - however most of what you'll be doing at the start are quests designed to guide you to craft certain critical items like bandages, tools and where to use them. The questline from Ron and Frank does eventually lead you further into later content, which is a great guiding beacon for players to keep track of where they can go whenever they desire to push further ahead. TRADING; One of the core ways to make money in this game is trading parcels between different settlements. In your time playing the game discovering all the variety of settlements; you'll eventually discover who sells and buys what and at what price. There are merchants that sell other goods as well which once you've secured good funds for; can help alleviate the need and stress of constantly salvaging resources that may be needed to maintain your settlement's production structures. WEAPONS & ARMOR; You can craft weapons and armor, however you'll come across rare drops from enemies sometimes that have unique stat modifiers. As far as I've seen, anything I've crafted is simply base stats and doesn't have the chance to create any of these unique modifiers - so ultimately your progression of 'better gear' would be from killing/looting to potentially find these better pieces of equipment. This doesn't feel unfair to me however, as killing and looting is inherently a big part of the game's core loop - you'll naturally come across these upgrades through playing and the crafted gear you created still feels like it has a decent enough impact to be worth it. OVER-ALL THOUGHTS | TL;DR I have great hopes for Plains of Pain - it has the core foundations of something that I believe can truly shine where perhaps other post-apocalyptic survival games have failed for me. The idea of starting from nothing - to eventually creating your own safe haven with NPCs to bring hope into a dying world is something I enjoyed from a similar game in themes like Kenshi. There is quite a lot of work to be done still, but the developers are actively working on this game with updates and hotfixes that gives me confidence that we will one day see what Plains of Pain can truly be. What is here now, is something I recommend you look into first to see if it's something you may enjoy; as this is an early access title with flaws that can turn away many people - but if you can look past that and see the vision of what the developers are creating here; I truly believe this game is worth supporting and seeing through to it's 1.0 release and beyond.

OMG, where do I begin? Do you like Mad Max? Interplay's Fallout? Kenshi? Survival and base building? THEN THIS GAME IS FOR YOU! The idea that you can participate in building up the world around you is an AWESOME concept! If you put int the work, they will come! (and automate a lot of the resource gathering!) Want to play with your friends? They've got online multiplayer. Feel a little antisocial today? They've got a fully stand alone single player! You can build all sorts of up-gradable vehicles! Blow up transport trucks! Fight all sorts of creepy monsters including giant slug worms! (they are gray and slimy!) For the casuals, this game is HARD! You're not the "chosen one" you're just SOME DUDE. Stuck in the wastelands, and you've got to scrap and scrounge and fight your way to the top! The development team has told me that Fallout 1 was a big influence on them. This game will PUNISH you if you don't play smart! There is a map, but no map markers. Also, aside from a short tutorial, no real quests (yet) other than a few to progress your stats past 40. And speaking of... even though you have a premade character, you have a lot of options in how to spec them out. Yes, this title is Early Access. With all the jank that implies, however, the devs make frequent updates, and are hard at work bugfixing and polishing and adding in the end game content. There aren't enough words I could write that explain my love of this game completely. At just $20 right now, this is a MUST BUY for me!