The fact that Antares was solo developed blew my mind given the outstanding visuals and smooth gameplay, even with swarms of enemies chasing you down.
Antares is a sci-fi survival FPS by sole developer Byron Swiegers of Sonaloux Entertainment that released on Steam on February 28, 2020. It’s an impressive feat when I see a game is developed by a sole developer. Even more impressive is when the game works without too many flaws, looks fantastic and captures the horror feeling really well. You would be forgiven for thinking Antares was made by a studio of people, so Byron is to be applauded for developing this on his own over a year and a half.
The year is 2078. Humanity has realised it’s potential for both Artificial Intelligence and space travel. A research vessel from the Denello Corporation had been dispatched to the perimeter of the celestial body Antares. It’s purpose was to harvest and study a potential new fuel source, the stellar wind that surrounds the star. A major breakthrough was confidentially communicated with HQ back on Earth. A few hours later, all communication was lost with the facility. After a week had passed, a distress beacon was issued. You were sent alone to investigate what has happened and straight away I was getting memories of playing 2008’s Dead Space. It sounds cliché but I love anything sci-fi so I jumped straight in.
You start in a dimly lit corridor with flickering lights and smooth metallic surfaces, boxes and barrels lying around and blood smears on the walls. Your AI friend, in my case called Max, asks if you’re responsive. You hear a mysterious voice over comms thanking you for bringing an AI core with you, as it’s all they need to get this facility back to Earth. They mention “it’s a great metaphor for us as a human race” which makes me think it could be a survivor that has been turned, or something else. Max tells you that preliminary scans detect non-human lifeforms and this started to put me on edge. Max has secured a based of operations and you are given a list of things to synchronise which is effectively the game’s tutorial.
Player movement felt very smooth and fluid. You shoot an assault rifle, the only gun you have in the game, with left mouse button, dash forward with the right button, tab opens inventory, and then you have some standard controls like sneak, spring and flashlight. You also have an echo ability by pressing ‘Q’ which slows down time and later you will be able to press ‘T’ to teleport back to the base of operations. There are items you can pick up off the floor such as ammo, scrap metal and materials used for crafting. You are then led to the base of operations which has an upgrade station, healing facility, power supply and an ammo dump. Using the upgrade station shows a long list of upgrades and lists the resources required to make them. You can upgrade the plasma shield, survival kit, fusion reactor, dynamic heatsink and combat gamma slugs. There are ten types of resources that can be acquired and you can upgrade player statistics such as max ammo, shield capacity, run speed, max health and damage.
Once the tutorial is complete, Max informs you that all systems appear functional after the crash. In order to pilot the station, you will need to breach the bridge. To access the bridge, all subsystems and will need to be checked and a breach item collected. There are 9 subsystem areas in total that require clearing, so this is the main game loop. There are also four special items available to collect through your travels. Leaving the base of operations, you’re thrust into the darkness of the ship and it’s hear where the game’s sounds become really important. Also important is a noise meter in the bottom left of your HUD.
You can tackle any of the nine subsystems in any order you wish but the first one you come across is the Operational Headquarters. Each area has been designed separately but the same gameplay loop occurs. Enter area and explore the corridors for items. I entered the operational HQ fairly casually as up until now I had seen no enemies. These areas are exceptionally dark, almost too dark for my liking. There are light sources everywhere and at first I didn’t use my torch. I worked out that was a mistake as I ran head first into a horde of zombies. These don’t have the best monster AI but they charge straight at you can there’s so many and it’s so dark that it’s easy to be overwhelmed. Within seconds I was faced with a black screen and the message, “You are dead.” Welcome to Antares!
When you die, you are reconstructed at the base of operations. You’ll need to use the healing facility and restock your ammo, and then wait for a timer to countdown to reactivate your abilities. Meanwhile, the swarm of zombies knew where the base of operations is because once I stepped into the main corridor, I ran straight into them again. There are four main types of enemies: The Swarm, Tanks, Flayers and Warpers. Thankfully headshots deal 4x the damage and these basic zombies are slow moving. Tanks have extra health, Warpers can teleport, Flayers slow the player down and do proximity damage, and the Swarm do the most damage.
The enemies scale as you complete each subsystem so you will want to keep upgrading your weapon and abilities to ensure you can handle each area. As you’re exploring you will come across audio logs which give a good backstory behind the scientists that used to frequent these halls. After a short time, you will receive notification on your hud that a power down cycle is imminent. Max strongly suggests not making noise during this power down cycle which is where the noise meter comes into play. The infested seem to hunt in the dark and would easily overwhelm us, and they certainly can do if you go in guns blazing.
When this message appears, it can become quite intense as you want to clear as much as you can before things go dark and very quiet. I found it best to attempt to clear everything you’re immediately dealing with, then run away and find a quiet spot to stealth around. If you fail to clear the monsters before everything goes dark, you quickly breach the noise meter threshold and that unleashed hordes of zombies from all sides and you’ll be overwhelmed quickly. With the ship’s hum not there, it’s eerily silent adding to the fear factor. You can be cheeky and jump up on crates as the monsters themselves can’t jump, however you will have to deal with them evenually once the power is back on. Once you’ve experienced this power down cycle a few times, you master it pretty quickly and know when to back off to silent safety in each subsystem area and eventually beat the game.
Overall I gave the game a 7.5/10. The fact that Antares was solo developed blew my mind given the outstanding visuals and smooth gameplay, even with hordes of enemies chasing you down. The game is initially intense as you discover each enemy type, but once you have survived a few power down cycles and learnt to deal with the four enemy types, you can master the gameplay with relative ease. The story, told through your AI companion and audio logs, is decent enough to drive you to completion and it was an enjoyable experience. Whilst Antares isn’t comparable to the likes of Doom 2016 or Doom Eternal, it’s still a decent FPS experience for sci-fi enthusiasts.
This review utilised a Steam key provided by the developer. Antares is available on Steam for AUD21.50 and is on sale until May 19, 2020 for AUD$10.75.
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Written by: @ChrisJInglis
