Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Twitch
    Game on Aus
    • News

      Private Division announces publishing partnership with Wētā Workshop

      August 17, 2022

      [THIS IS A PRESS RELEASE THAT WAS PROVIDED TO GOA] Private Division, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO),…

      How cross-progression works in Overwatch 2

      August 17, 2022

      Ahead of Overwatch 2 launching on October 5, Blizzard have offered players player who have multiple console accounts to start…

      WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Classic pre-patch content coming this month

      August 17, 2022

      THE official launch of Wrath of the Lich King Classic isn’t for another month and a bit, but a plethora…

      Final Fantasy XIV Online live stream reveals exciting new content

      August 17, 2022

      LAST weekends Letter from the Producer LIVE broadcast revealed plenty of new details for future content of Final Fantasy XIV…

      Bethesda ANZ, Sharetea & Menulog bring you, The Elder Scrolls Online: Teas of Tamriel

      August 17, 2022

      BUBBLE Tea – also known as Boba tea – is a popular drink worldwide that originated in Taiwan in the…

      View All
    • Reviews

      Thymesia – Review

      August 17, 2022

      THYMESIA, the latest in the Soulsborne genre of games and first time attempt from developer Team17 has a huge task…

      Nanoleaf Shapes Triangles Starter Kit Review

      August 17, 2022

      AS I mentioned in my review for the Nanoleaf Essentials Bulb and Lightstrip, I’ve recently taken an interest in Smart…

      Marvel Snap Review

      August 15, 2022

      Captivating. Unhealthy. Concerning. These are some of the words to describe my relationship with Marvel Snap. When it was teased…

      Excitement builds for PAX Aus 2022

      August 15, 2022

      WITH only 52 days to go until Australia’s most anticipated gaming event, PAX Aus 2022, you best believe I am…

      Way of the Hunter – Review

      August 15, 2022

      WAY OF THE HUNTER is a hunting simulation game developed by None Rocks Games, published by THQ Nordic and set…

      View All
    • Podcasts
      Nuts & Bolts Hero Card 53

      Nuts & Bolts Episode 53: Why You Sleep Through Playoffs?

      August 13, 2022

      LCO playoffs are now settled! Who’s going to Dreamhack? Results for Commonwealth Esports Series, Rainbow 6 OCS, TFT Dragonlands Challenger Series and more!

      There Is No Cow Level

      August 11, 2022

      Stormie and Jim chat about Screenwest grants for Perth game devs and ask why Sony are charging so much for…

      Nuts & Bolts Hero Card 52

      Nuts & Bolts Episode 52: Come On Kanga!

      July 30, 2022

      With only two weeks left in the LCO things are heating up! Who will make the playoffs? Can anybody beat the Chiefs? Plus just what’s going on with the Valorant scene? We’ve got bans, teams dropping Valorant, and more!

      No NFTs For Minecraft

      July 28, 2022

      On this episode Minecraft says no to NFTs and a clever marketing campaign dares you to refund a game. Plus…

      Streamaholics Hero Card 35

      Streamaholics Ep 35: Twitch Hates Small Streamers…Or Do They?

      July 24, 2022

      On this week’s episode the boys discuss whether Twitch actually cares about Small Streamers, Shippy gets excited about Instagram Live Streaing and Lukey has a blunt message for new creators. All that and much more!

      View All
    • Categories
      • BY PLATFORM
        • Playstation
        • Xbox
        • Nintendo
        • PC
        • Mobile
        • VR
        • Retro
      • BY GENRE
        • Action
        • Action-Adventure
        • Adventure
        • Battle Royale
        • Fighting
        • FPS
        • Horror Games
        • RPG
        • Simulation
        • Sports
        • MMORPG
        • MOBA
        • Party Game
        • Platformer
        • Puzzle
        • Strategy
        • Survival
        • Indie
      • GOA ESSENTIALS
        • Esports
        • Conventions
        • Tabletop
        • Hardware
        • Furniture
        • Funny
        • Streaming
        • Win
        • Podcast
        • Video
    • More
      • About Us
      • Contact Us
    Game on Aus
    Home » Ashwalkers: A Survival Journey Review
    REVIEW

    Ashwalkers: A Survival Journey Review

    Chris InglisBy Chris InglisApril 15, 2021
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Ashwalkers is much deeper than just a walking simulator, with it’s survival elements and choices that affect the outcome of your party and the story.

    Ashwalkers is a survival sim by Life is Strange co-creator Hervé Bonin’s new studio Nameless XIII and publisher Dear Villagers. It releases on Steam on April 15, 2021 and I was able to play it a few days early experiencing just a couple of the 34 possible endings to the game. I enjoyed the greyscale art style with touches of red, and music which provided a bleak but hopeful outlook for the four adventurers as they journey through the harsh ash-filled post-apocalyptic world.

    Set 200 years after a geological disaster, a group of survivors called The Squad set out into a ravaged landscape. They need to find a haven for their people, but to reach it they must cross a post-apocalyptic wasteland full of complex moral dilemmas. Through playing, you will come to know these four characters as you manage their food, warmth, energy, and equipment at campsites and work their way through various zones towards a possible 34 endings.

    Each zone has varying degrees of cold temperatures, with the coldest zones causing icicles to form around the edges of the screen. As your party trudges on, they will expend heat and energy, and gain hunger. Picking up items uses energy so it is important to watch everyone’s energy levels and you can easily switch active party members by pressing the right mouse button. You use this method to also manage the limited inventory slots each character has.

    Taking control of leader of the group Petra, the pragmatic fighter Sinh, the young optimistic scholar Kali and the cautious scout Nadir, you will traverse each zone through fairly linear pathways looking for shining points of interest to loot or inspect. Along the way, there is always a threat of other humanoinds or monsters that will challenge your thinking and test your limits, but you always have a choice for the party to comprehend.

    When the party members need a break, you must set up camp. You need wood to start a fire which provides some warmth to the group. Generally, two pieces of wood is enough to warm everyone after a sleep. Check which members need to be fed and if any are injured, and if you have enough medkits, you can heal their wounds. Party members who are low on energy will need to rest. Depending on the danger percentage at the bottom of the screen, you may need to put 1 or 2 members on guard.

    If there are party members that don’t need to sleep and the danger level is low enough, this is a good opportunity to either go exploring for resources or to converse with each other. When you do manage to get some characters talking, you start to see how they relate to each other and they talk a bit about their history and their surroundings. It’s a good break from the sometimes intense progression of Ashwalkers’ main gameplay loop.

    “We are huge fans of choose your own adventure books” says Hervé Bonin, cofounder of developer Nameless XIII. “Our ambition is to combine that sense of a detailed unfolding world with the interactivity of a video game, a game where every choice matters.”

    Some situations in Ashwalkers involve vicious animals and whether you engage, run away, hide or set a trap. In one instance there was a vulture ahead. I chose to trap it as opposed to attacking it, which ultimately killed the vulture but without it biting back and injuring the party, producing meat for the party. Further down the path, there were three vultures surrounding a nomad. I had the choice to move on let the nomad succumb to the vultures, fight the vultures, lead them away or start a fire. I chose to lead them away which cost the party 3 meat, but it saved the nomad.

    Later, that same nomad welcomed us into their otherwise hostile encampment. At that point, all party members had depleted their energy and food and were losing hitpoints due to being freezing. The nomad’s wife invited us into their home where she fed us, restoring our food and warmth, and the squad was remotivated to their task, improving their morale. This couldn’t have come at a better time for the squad.

    Your choices have consequences, so it is up to you to determine how you play. In some instances where I chose to fight, some of the party members got injured and I did not have any medkits in our backpacks. As we travelled further, the injured party members’ energy and health were dropping faster, so it put pressure on me to search for medkits. Thankfully, I did eventually find some in time to recoup their injuries. In another instance, I was not so fortunate and lost a party member.

    The party can survive if someone dies, however if three out of the four party members die, your journey will fail. In the couple of runs I played, the worst I did was to lose two party members, and that really made me anxious about what would jump out of the shadows next. In this example, the two characters left were in despair about the situation which affected the efficiency of tasks. One cool thing to note here is when a party member dies, the loading icon in the bottom right usually shows 4 figures walking, will show 3 or 2 people walking signifying the ones that died – I appreciated that small touch.

    After traversing through four zones in Ashwalkers, which took me 2.5 hours, you finish that run through and experience a complete story. There are six zones to explore, but you only traverse four of them in any given run. As mentioned earlier, there are 34 possible endings, so you are encouraged to start a new game and make different choices to gain different experiences each time. Once you have finished one run, you can begin a new game and choose the starting zone which allows you to discover different paths faster.

    Overall, Ashwalkers is much deeper than just a walking simulator, with it’s survival elements and choices that affect the outcome of your party and the story. It really is a choose-your-own-adventure game while you manage the survival of the squad and leading them to safety. You have always got choices and you must live with the consequences. Given each run through is around 2 hours, you can take risks without feeling like you have doomed your game and lost time. It is a game I will be returning to regularly.

    This review utilised a key provided by Future Friends Games. Ashwalkers is out now on Steam for USD11.99 with a 15% launch discount.

    #gameonAUS


    Written by: @ChrisJInglis

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Previous ArticleV4 MMORPG’s Most Expansive Content Update Yet
    Next Article Destiny 2’s Guardian Games Are Back

    Related Posts

    PC August 17, 2022

    Thymesia – Review

    THYMESIA, the latest in the Soulsborne genre of games and first time attempt from developer Team17 has a huge task…

    REVIEW August 17, 2022

    Nanoleaf Shapes Triangles Starter Kit Review

    AS I mentioned in my review for the Nanoleaf Essentials Bulb and Lightstrip, I’ve recently taken an interest in Smart…

    Subscribe

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    Ads

    Categories
    • ACTION
    • ACTION-ADVENTURE
    • ADVENTURE
    • BATTLE ROYALE
    • CLOUD GAMING
    • CONVENTIONS
    • ESPORTS
    • FEATURE
    • FIGHTING
    • FPS
    • FUNNY
    • FURNITURE
    • GOA
    • HARDWARE
    • HORROR GAMES
    • INDIE
    • Industry
    • LEGO
    • MMORPG
    • MOBA
    • MOBILE
    • NEWS
    • NINTENDO
    • Open-World
    • OPINION
    • PARTY GAME
    • PC
    • PLATFORMER
    • PLAYSTATION
    • PODCAST
    • Press Release
    • PREVIEW
    • PUZZLE
    • RACING
    • RETRO
    • REVIEW
    • RPG
    • SIMULATION
    • SPORTS
    • STRATEGY
    • STREAMING
    • SURVIVAL
    • TABLETOP GAMING
    • TECH
    • VIDEO
    • VR
    • XBOX
    Related Article
    Press Release

    Private Division announces publishing partnership with Wētā Workshop

    August 17, 2022Nick HollidayBy Nick Holliday

    [THIS IS A PRESS RELEASE THAT WAS PROVIDED TO GOA] Private Division, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), today announced they have…

    NEWS

    How cross-progression works in Overwatch 2

    August 17, 2022Nick HollidayBy Nick Holliday

    Ahead of Overwatch 2 launching on October 5, Blizzard have offered players player who have multiple console accounts to start merging them into one…

    MMORPG

    WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Classic pre-patch content coming this month

    August 17, 2022Nick HollidayBy Nick Holliday

    THE official launch of Wrath of the Lich King Classic isn’t for another month and a bit, but a plethora of pre-patch content is…

    Game on Australia Logo

    Game On Aus is an Australian games publication working across written, video and podcast, and supported by an ever-growing community of content creators and fans!

    Copyright GameOnAus 2022. Privacy Policy

    CONTENT
    • News
    • Gaming Reviews
    • Podcast
    • Tech
    • Indie
    ABOUT GOA
    • About Us
    • Contact

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.