Sunkenland

It feels like Christmas came early whenever a new survival game pops up on my radar, especially when it promises a unique take on genre staples and tropes. Sunkenland, by developer/publisher Vector3 Studio, is currently the delightful fire to my proverbial outside weather, to stretch this metaphor perhaps to its breaking point.

The first thing that might come to mind (depending on your age and familiarity with Kevin Costner movies) is that this looks like Waterworld: The Game. Of course, Sunkenland shouldn’t be mistaken for the actual Waterworld video game on the Virtual Boy, because no game should suffer that fate (even if Vector3 does insist on using the word Waterworld in their official Twitter headline).

Sunkenland

However if none of what you just read means anything at all to you, the premise of Sunkenland is pretty simple: Stranded in a world where the water levels have drowned most of society of yore, you are tasked with eking out a life above the waves, on makeshift platform bases and small dots of islands that manage to peak their little heads out of the water. You will also need to scavenge beneath the surface of the ocean in the hopes of finding precious resources — and perhaps sunken treasures.

Sunkenland can be played solo or in co-op, so unlike a PvP-heavy game like Rust, it appears that most (if not all) the dangers come in the form of NPC pirates and raiders, which is honestly a sea shanty to my ears. You will also encounter the dangers of the deep, as aquatic life will likely pose a threat while you’re exploring the ocean deep.

For the most part, the base-building system looks pretty much like what you would expect and hope for in a title of this nature. Combat looks like a mix of guns and melee, and the amount of vehicles already in the game is impressive, ranging from dingies and jet skis all the way up to larger fishing and military vessels. We even see a gyrocopter at one point.

I am already sold on Sunkenland merely by the premise alone, as an unashamed fan of Waterworld and of survival games in general. The game’s Steam page says it’s coming soon, with no concrete release date, but hopefully we won’t have to wait long before it hits early access.

But I guess it’s best not to… hold one’s breath…

You can check out the trailer below.

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