Dysmantle
by developer and publisher
10tons
LTD—
PC
(Steam) preview written by
Pierre-Yves
with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Having been out in Early Access for a little while now, I finally had
the chance to sit down to 10tons's almost Last of Us meets the
original Fortnite's original survival concepts. Having hidden in a
private bunkers for years, with your supplies having finally run out,
you venture forth into a world that's moved on and plagued by beings
once known as humans and other wildlife.
Dysmantle is fun. Outright, there is a vast region to explore at your
own pace and while some elements may be locked behind quests or
crafting progression, you're generally not barred from going wherever
you want to. Starting off with nothing more than the clothes on your
back and a crowbar, you'll be dismantling just about everything
inside in order to get the materials to build what you need to
survive. Better backpack, better weapons, farming tools, trinkets to
give you a leg up on those that were once human and will kill you on
sight. It has it all.
Now the reason I mention the original Fortnite is because in the
original version, before the free-to-play battle royale, there was a
tower defense survival zombie apocalypse shooter. In this tower
defense survival you had to break down materials in order to build
defenses and walls to protect yourself. This is a little of what
Dysmantle makes me think of short of the tower defense and oncoming
hordes. Now there are enemies, just not
Zerg rush “hordes”
of them. Where things become a little more in their own element is
that certain grades materials can only be broken with certain levels
of equipment.
So for example your original crowbar will not be able to destroy a
tougher metal cabinet. It's going to have to be leveled up first. On
the same note even a leveled up crowbar is not going to be able to
destroy a rubber tire, you're going to need the machete for that.
What's convenient about just these two tools before getting into the
rest is that they can also be used in combat and will affect how you
approach a target as they swing a bit differently and do different
amounts of damage. Add in other items like throwing knives, compasses
to unlock fast-travel, fishing rods and bait for enemies, you’ll be
trying to break every house down just to get what you want access to.
In terms of general gameplay, you’ll be moved around in a top down
view that you can easily switch the camera around to get a better
view if something is in your way. You can walk, run, dodge and then
swing or throw anything that you have equipped. So far, there’s no
stamina meter which is nice in a way as some of these ex-humans are
terrifying and already hard enough to stay ahead of once they give
chase. Combat follows the same rules of not having to worry about
stamina and it’s either over once anything trying to kill you is
dead, or you are. If you die, you’ll respawn at your previous
campsite with nothing more than what you’ve previously made, but
anything picked up, will have to be re-obtained off the skeleton and
the backpack that marks where you previously died.
One thing that I really appreciated early wasn’t just that you’re
free to go where you want, but also that there’s an underlying fear
of maybe you’ve gone too far. Maybe “now” would be a good time
to either head back to drop off your materials, or head back to sit
down at the campfire to heal up and to save your current progress. I
may have only had Dysmantle crash once within the first five hours,
but it was enough to teach me to never go too too far as I would
easily run the risk of losing a fair amount of progress.
On the note of the campfire though, I wouldn't say that Dysmantle is
a roguelike, maybe it has some little elements to it, but whenever
you rest at a campfire not unlike Dark Souls, everything respawns
short of the actual bosses. They thankfully stay dead and the only
thing that they do is respawn their corpses where you first met them
instead of where you took them out. There is a way around the
respawning, and it’s not like in Dark Souls II where you simply
murder rampaged them ten or fifteen times, but in modifying the
transmission towers that also act as your fast-travel points. By
learning how to make these modifications, you can prevent the
respawning and also obtain a specific material only available
previously through the bosses that you dispatched to make it that
far.
Still in Early Access, but having given a roadmap of the features yet
to come in the next versions (see screenshot below), there’s plenty
of work that has already gone into Dysmantle and still plenty yet
left to come. As I said in the beginning, this is fun and unlike a
lot of others in this specific type of adventure, Dysmantle isn’t
designed to kill you on the spot. It can, but it provides a challenge
without being absolutely brutal about it. If I had one wish of things
to perhaps come it would be to play with in a coop fashion with maybe
one or two other people and maybe just raising the difficulty of the
enemies to compensate. Otherwise, it’s a great single player
experience that doesn’t need a multiplayer element at the end of
the day.
Summary
If you’ve been looking for a title that is very easy to sink hours
into at a time and provides both a challenge while still being
relaxing enough as you explore a world of riches, I would suggest
checking out 10tons’ Dysmantle. Currently in version 0.6.10 at the
time of this writing, there’s still plenty yet to come and I’m
looking quite forward to it!
Score: N/A
