Solus Project (XboxOne) Review

Title: Solus Project
Developer: Teotl Studios, Grip Digital
Publisher:Teotl Studios, Grip Digital
Players: 1

The surge in popularity of the “survival” genre is definitely starting to breed some interesting experiences. Solus Project is unfortunately not one of them. Some interesting ideas such as some survival horror aspects coupled with an enigmatic storyline could have made for and extremely intriguing experience, but they end up being just an underwhelming walking simulator.

You are humanity’s last hope—something your suit will remind you of entirely too often—sent out on a mission to find a habitable planet for the last of the species to colonize. Unfortunately your ship is blasted by some energy beam and crashes on an unknown planet. With the assumption that you are the last surviving crew member, you go about attempting to contact the rest of the species and report your findings.

The survival aspect of the game quickly becomes an afterthought as food and water are both found in great abundance throughout the entire experience. Crafting is also quickly sidelined as you must only create one torch, which despite being crudely constructed from a ball of cave moss and some oil in a metal pipe will continue to burn for the entirety of the game. Additionally, it is the only light source you will ever actually need, especially since the flashlight is solar powered and will actually leave you in the darkness if not charged fairly frequently.

The desolate world is fairly uninhabited, but eventually you will come across some local fauna such as the small black spikeballs the squeak that I refered to as ‘tribble-urchins.’ Most of these critters will do you no harm, although later the environment does get a bit more dangerous. Ultimately though it is a whole lot of walking from point A to B to solve a simple puzzle and move on to the next area.

The soundtrack for the game somehow just came off as pretentious to me and did little to highlight the mood of the game. I was also unaware that my character was capable of speech until about three hours into the game when he randomly went into some captain’s log type speech for five minutes to then cease talking once again.

One thing the game did get right was the visual aesthetic: from the rocky beaches to the underground temples, the game looks great. The occasional texture hiccup can be seen here and there, but they are not enough to worry about. The ambiance is well done and makes some of the later moments tense even in spite of the lackluster soundscape.