Soulmask is a multiplayer sandbox video game with authentic survival mechanics and gameplay design developed by CampFire Studio and published by Qooland Games. Players rise in an ancient world with almost nothing and have to shape their future to become the leaders of civilization by dealing with all sorts of hardships and challenges that the primitive land put up.
It offers both Solo and Multiplayer experiences with its dedicated PVE and PVP servers so that players can immerse in an open-world survival experience they are most comfortable with.
Story
Soulmask doesn’t have any complete story, but it shows a vision of a player escaping a sacrifice ritual and finding an ancient mask that holds potent knowledge. The mask is capable of many things and players will have to make use of it to learn new abilities to strengthen their character and control various tribesmen to form one civilization.
Moreover, the world of Soulmask has various hidden relics that players will have to discover to progress ahead in the game.
Gameplay
Soulmask is a third-person open-world survival game in which you will wake up in a random spot of the world after creating your character. After creating the character, you will be required to create one of the starting masks in the game to pursue a certain playstyle for your character. Each mask inherits different abilities so choose the one you are most comfortable to begin with.
As you wake up, your next steps are to either follow the generic tutorial of the survival games or gather the essential materials to start crafting the crucial tools, weapons, and items for the journey ahead. The world is enriched with both organic materials and minerals that you will have to gather to place down your initial base.
There are over 150 crafting recipes along with the building structures that you can test out in your journey as you progress through the game. One of the main methods to progress is by enhancing your character’s Awareness Strength which is basically the level of your character. You will earn the XP almost by doing anything like foraging, cutting, crafting, building, etc.
With the Awareness Strength Level increased you will have to unlock the blueprints for the recipes before crafting them. To do so, you have to open the Knowledge & Technology menu and browse through the various tiers of the blueprint chart. Every blueprint will require a certain Awareness Strength and most of them will also require Technology Points that are earned per level up of Awareness Strength.
Exploring the world will also let you encounter various Outcasts that you can either kill or make your own Tribesmen. Turning the enemies into your tribesmen will make things a lot easier for you as you will be able to control them and give orders to build structures, take care of crops and animals at your base, forage resources, craft items, assist you in fights, and much more. The Tribe mechanic is one of the most immersive features of the game and giving your precious time to settle your tribe at the base is probably one of the essential things to do in the starting hours of the game.
You will have a low number of Tribesmen in the early hours of the game but you can increase them by invading the other campsites and ruins areas to turn more outcasts into your tribe. However, as a leader of your tribe, you will also have to take care of them by providing them with food and water like the animals.
Speaking of animals, there are various mounts in Soulmask that you can acquire that will help you navigate through the world easily. Each mount has a certain special characteristic that you can use to your advantage. Apart from the mounts, there are several other animals that you can breed at your base for various reasons.
Combat in Soulmask is very tense and immersive with a wide range of upgradeable weapons and armor. Every weapon in the game has a certain ability that you can use to deal an extensive amount of damage or use a different approach to engage with enemies. However, combat is a bit clunky in Soulmask, it can take a bit of time to grow over your instincts and reflexes.
Despite its clunkiness, the combat is enhanced with a set of abilities that you unlock by repairing the nodes of your equipped mask. The abilities and perks of your character are very expansive in Soulmask and unlocked by upgrading the mask. Upgrading the mask requires a certain material found within the chests located in the Ruins and Dungeons. You can use that material to repair the node to unlock the ability and there are abilities for all sorts of things like combat, survival, foraging, knowledge, and much more.
Another unique feature in Soulmask is removing the Fog of War from the map to reveal it more. As you begin the adventure, you will only have a knowledge of a small portion of the world. The rest of the areas will be covered with Fog of War which you will have to remove to see more of the map and unlock new points of interest. Revealing the map will require you to hunt down a Scout enemy and damage them until they are low on HP to draw information out of them using the mask.
Sound and Visuals
The visuals of Soulmask are promising and quite vibrant throughout the cycle of the day. However, they might not satisfy your expectations of a graphical representation of the world and NPCs, but it is quite impressive for an Early Access state game. All the biomes of the world have their respective habitats feelings and atmospheres that will make you somewhere immersed in the experience.
The sound design of the game is quite generic but it does fulfill the needs of an open-world survival game. You can feel the unfinished life of nature while exploring the rainforests but the sounds that outlive the most are the sound effects of abilities and combat.
Verdict – Score 7/10
Soulmask is a great open-world survival video game that can be enjoyed both Solo and with friends in both PVE and PVP servers. Its vast world with multiple biomes allows players to immerse in its world to explore all of the biomes and uncover the secrets hidden within them. The number of crafting recipes and building structures add an immersive experience of survival whereas, the Tribe mechanic is what shines the most.
For its current state of Early Access, despite the unfinished content of the story and wilderness of the world, it performs very well and offers a ton of hours of playtime.
Soulmask is now available on PC (Steam) and GeForce Now.
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