AWAY: The Survival Series Reviews
AWAY: The Survival Series had a shot at providing something a bit different, but it has a multitude of issues that hold it back. Maybe the number of bugs is supposed to be some meta commentary about the actual creatures in the game, but I doubt it.
Though well-intentioned as an interactive educational documentary about the spectacular lives of sugar gliders, AWAY: The Survival Series simply isn't sufficiently sophisticated or well designed enough to pass muster as a videogame that will keep you coming back. As it is, AWAY: The Survival Series is an attractive, if clunky edutainment title that only the youngest and most inexperienced PlayStation gamers will truly enjoy.
The story mode will be wrapped up within five hours but there is an exploration mode if you haven’t quite had your fill of bugs. Here you’ll be able to take control of other creatures and, as the title suggests, explore. There are short video logs dotted around the place if you want to try to find out more about what happened to the world. Although, once you realise that the other creatures are even harder to control than the sugar glider, and have encountered your fair share of crashes, you’ll probably decide that you don’t actually care that much about the reasons for humanity’s demise.
AWAY: The Survival Series is an audacious game that fails to deliver on its excellent premise. Although clearly built with love and passion, the number of bugs and flawed mechanics make this a frustrating and arduous trek through the wild.
While AWAY: The Survival Series nails its nature doc narration conceit, it doesn't have anything particularly enlightening to say. The game does sometimes succeed as a straightforward cinematic adventure, but rough controls and a general lack of polish derail the rollercoaster far too often. Playing AWAY can be compelling at times, particularly if you're an animal lover, but you might find queueing up a few episodes of Planet Earth more fulfilling.
The beauty of Away: The Survival Series isn't the gameplay but the journey itself. While it has it's problems with bugs, the environment itself is lovely and the narration and musical score at least give the short expedition a quiet elegance.
Buggy, broken, and boring, Away: The Survival Series is awful all around.
I wish I had more positive points to speak about, but AWAY: The Survival Series just isn’t that fun to play, and being a video game this is one of the most important aspects for the developers to nail. The experience feels unnaturally empty and shallow, and whilst the good intentions are there, the execution makes it a hard title to recommend spending money on, at least in its current state which feels like an early access title, despite it being a proper release. If this title piques your interest, I would suggest waiting to see what the developers end up fixing and tweaking as they have promised to fix multiple issues and provide constant updates to offer a more polished title.
AWAY is a beautiful and educational adventure like no other, but major gameplay mechanics are poorly executed and take away from it being a standout title in the survival genre.
Just like Ancestors, AWAY: The Survival Series is based on an interesting idea, but the end result is far from being entertaining or even educational. Instead of being a nature documentary it is a rudimentary combination of platformers with a bad combat system and even worse stealth mechanic.
AWAY: The Survival Series is a great idea that unfortunately was horribly handled in almost every way. The poor handling, uncooperative camera, and bugs are a hell of a combination. Neither the great concept of the game nor the nice graphics could keep me with the game, nor did it convince me to give it a positive rating. I hope that the creators won't break the imaginary stick over the title and will try to fix most of their mistakes, hopefully in the shortest possible time.
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As a lover of both wildlife documentaries and videogames I absolutely wanted to fall in love with AWAY, but the rough edges of the gameplay and some bugginess proved just too much of a burr under the saddle to be entirely enjoyable. The frustrating gliding controls, a rogue camera, and a smattering of weird and wonderful bugs throws salt on the rich earth of a great idea. The premise is a marvellous one and I applaud the team at Breaking Walls for doing just that – smashing down another wall of what can be made into a videogame. I hope that the team continues with their ‘Survival Series’ and works to bring more playable nature stories to life in the future – I have every faith that this could be a wonderful franchise with only some refinement.
Overall, I believe that AWAY: The Survival Series has a lot of potential. While there may be some bugs in its current state once these are fixed then gameplay and longevity would greatly improve. Despite its current flaws, it is still very much playable and very enjoyable. A hybrid between a platformer, a puzzler and also a nature documentary. This is definitely one to keep an eye on, for this reason. I award AWAY: The Survival Series a Thumb Culture Silver Award.
A sugar glider nature documentary as a video game, AWAY The Survival Series is an interesting idea for an hour. At that point its otherwise buoyant glide is dragged down by erratic camera, game-breaking glitches, poorly implemented combat and awful gliding controls. This one is better left in the wild.
You are a 6 months old sugar glider living an adventure in a post-apocalyptic world. Run, climb, hide, fight, glide… You will have to do everything to survive being mid of the food chain. AWAY has 2 game modes: STORY and EXPLORATION. While on Story mode there is a chain of quests to complete, on Exploration mode, you fly around possessing different creatures and exploring the map. There is a clear effort to make players feel they are in a National Geographic nature documentary. The music, narrator, and written script resemble something you would watch on the TV. But, the CONSTANT BUGS, glitches, and performances issues won’t let you “transcend” from the state of “this is just a game”.