Once Human Reviews
Once Human offers a deeply moreish open world scavenge-em-up, but weak action and generic clutter hold it back.
A deep, surprisingly sticky, truly free-to-play mashup of what you like from a bunch of other survival MMOs.
Once Human combines simple but solid building and upgrading with some of the best, and weirdest, creature designs of the year to create a very enjoyable survival-crafting experience.
Once Human is a fascinating game. There’s no other way of putting it. It’s a multiplayer open-world survival crafting game with a Ubisoft-style quest system (go here, clear an outpost, find hidden chests), a Pokemon-like creature collecting aspect with Palworld animal-workforce undertones, with Rust - or DayZ-esque - PvP and seasonal wipes to boot. It’s an eclectic hash of all these games, for better, and for worse.
Once Human is an immensely playable, atmospheric and addictive third-person survival crafter with a huge world to go out and explore, alone or with others.
Neither Once Human's third-person combat or survival crafting are especially novel or exciting, made less so by reams of live service baggage and seemingly endless resources and collectables. But an idiosyncratic soul and great creature design keeps it from being uninteresting.
Overall, Once Human’s blend of action, survival/crafting, and MMORPG-like mission design kept me entertained and happily occupied. While some of the more challenging enemies are designed around multiplayer teamwork, the majority of the game’s content is solo player-friendly. Once Human can be approached and enjoyed in lots of ways. It needs some further refinement, but Once Human’s hybrid genre approach pays off.
Once Human is certainly not a production of great originality and has a forgettable history. Fortunately, it is also a really enjoyable survival game, which can be played completely free. Unlike many other free to play productions, NetEase's is free of in-app purchases that speed up progression or facilitate the user, putting everyone on the same level. This factor, the accessibility of the experience and the absence of elements capable of generating frustration, make him one of the most interesting exponents of the genre seen in recent times. It will now be up to the developers to work hard to fix the problems and support Once Human with new content, even net of some questionable choices.
Review in Italian | Read full review
SCHiM is an adorable indie platformer with a unique presentation and mechanic that make it a must-play for fans of cosy games and platformers.
Once Human's setting and gunplay have merits, despite some unoriginal ideas and systems. However, its faulty foundations, from the blueprint system and the building to the story-telling, keep it from truly standing out.
If you like survival games and are not afraid of grinding, feel free to start Once Human. This is a stylish and expensive game that will keep you busy for a long time.
Fans of survival MMOs should get their share of resource gathering, combat, and building in Once Human. For a free-to-play game, it offers quite an impressive playtime to enjoy without any constrictions, and the production values are quite good overall. It can be a riot for solo players for some long hours but it gets more enjoyable in a group, and the issues that be aren’t enough to deter any player who is having fun with it. Give it a shot and the most you can lose is the time it took you to install it and play for a while.
Once Human might be the first crafting game I find myself coming back to regularly thanks to solid combat fundamentals, a perfectly-tuned crafting loop, and a level of polish that’s often all too rare in the genre.