I wrote around 1,000 words about Abiotic Factor last year, and wrapped it up nicely stating this game could be Game of the Year whenever its 1.0 build comes out.  Abiotic Factor in 2024 really had a tough job catching my attention since normally based on my preferences this would’ve never been touched.  Early Access?  Hate it. I’m already impatient in games that I enjoy, hitting a roadblock only makes enduring the wait for the next update miserable.  Let me chew on everything when it’s done.  Same for demos, not a fan.  Survival Crafting Genre?  No thank you, the gaming sphere has been absolutely littered with choices on this genre and all have this tendency to just fucking hate the player.  Probably a bad example, but I’ve watched my wife and roommates play ARK for the past few years and every time they explain what they’re doing and what happens if you play wrong or just, I don’t know, log off and go to bed and wake up to your base destroyed because you had the audacity not to defend it at 4:15AM on a Tuesday? That never vibed with me.  I digress: I’ve been provided with a nice, shiny, Gold product ready to build and break: lets get to Science-ing.

Taking from my previous article: Abiotic’s plot plays like a mix of Half-Life and SCP stuffed with humorous shenanigans.  As a GATE employee you’re tasked with explaining the unexplainable: searching and researching multi-dimensional substances, scenarios, and scenery that goes beyond Earthly comprehension or explanation.  When a containment breach turns your workplace into a warzone, you’re the complex’s last hope for help as you band with your fellow scientists to craft and supply your way out of this mess, one dimension at a time.

Creation of your character breaks down into two facets, what scientist you are and your specific traits.  There are multiple “styles” of scientist to choose from, giving a small backstory of your created character with specific boosts to stats.  My first playthrough found myself as the team chef, getting increased based stats to cooking and a passive XP bonus when performing said cooking to get my levels higher quicker.  At certain levels in your skill tree you gain additional skills that enhance your character even more. Spent a lot of time cooking?  Now you can produce additional pieces of food to make them last longer or provide extra bonuses if it comes from your hands.  My partner in crime chose a melee-centric attacker so he could face-check the unknown and I could feed him soup and sammies.

These styles of character come through the Trait system, which bases itself on a plus/minus scale depending on what buffs and nerfs you’ll take on your character.  Having better XP gain takes a lot of points that will need a couple minuses to fill that gap, so your character may not have good stamina as a trade-off. Some character archetypes can feel troll-like with purposeful detriments to start off, so maybe don’t be the security guard who is canonically dumb as shit, though it is funny to try it on a 2nd or 3rd go-around.

Combat at its core is simple albeit a bit janky at times, which I found okay. You’re not a warrior, you’re a scientist thrown into constant turmoil.  The structure of light and heavy weaponry provides difference in damage and attack speed. Waving around a combat knife will hit quicker and allow for faster movement but hauling a pickaxe into someone’s skull requires more precise timing to risk/reward that extra damage.  You can also opt for ranged combat by creating crossbows or throwing knives made out of box cutters and pens, to finding and looting actual weaponry from pistols to shotguns and more.  Ranged is obviously the safer way to fight but you have piss poor accuracy to start and your character has probably never reloaded a magazine in their life, so getting used to that takes time and effort on your scientist’s part.  Ammo can also be very scarce in the early to mid goings so whacking people and monsters with table legs when the situation calls for it is never a bad idea to save a few bullets for the angrier folk.

The survival elements for Abiotic Factor are prevalent but enjoyably manageable.  Your scientist must constantly battle hunger, thirst, sleep, temperature, and your bladder, and everything is on a pretty fair timer that still requires you to plan accordingly or suffer the consequences.  You will get audio cues ranging from talking about needing to, uh, “defecate,” to wondering when the last time you ate was, to chattering your teeth when it gets bitterly cold.  You can bring a litany of items to combat these elements in your backpack inventory, because nothing beats a home cooked meal with a couple sodas, building a makeshift toilet to let ‘er rip, then taking a power nap on a military cot before getting back into battle. Ask me how I know.

Progression through the plot and equipment are masterful as the “one more level” feel of other games is translated into “one more creation” or “one more recipe” or “one more level up” and can make hours feel like minutes.  Each new unlock of the GATE facility pieces together beautifully as Abiotic provides a main hub to use found shortcuts more efficiently but where you want to set up camp is entirely up to you.  I’ve played on 3 separate people’s games and have seen 3 separate main bases where they decided to call home.  All have their pros and cons but it’s what works best for the specific scientist and I love that freedom.

And that freedom loops back into your character as well.  With over 20 stats to level up, you can really take everything Abiotic Factor has to offer and create completely different characters.  My first character was a heavy-weapon focused character specializing in cooking and first aid with a handy-dandy laser pistol for helpful ranged damage.  My newest character has become John Wick and specializes with military-level weaponry and sneaking so I can get double damage to start every fight, or the potential to end it immediately.

All-in-all, when you put together the foundational pieces with a stellar map set-up and progression tooled as nicely as it is: Abiotic Factor is just up-and-down so much fun.  I can’t remember the last game I played that not only took me around 60-70 hours to beat, but also had my friends express interest in playing and I willingly dropped everything to start over again.  It’s a major reason why I haven’t written shit in over 2 months: I’ve been here!  And the itch to keep playing is there, even after seeing about 99% of what’s available. I’m just missing a fully completed fish catalog but we’ll get there!

There’s something just so satisfactory about building your character to your liking and seeing how Abiotic ebbs and flows based on what your character is great at.  I got to learn the love that Sniper Rifles can give you on a second playthrough when I was wailing about with two-handed weaponry before.  I got slogged down with heavy armor my first time around but being able to actually have stamina was a crazy concept on playthrough 3. My favorite world will always be the World in the Mirror. I had a buddy record 11 minutes of the music and it’s been my idle soundtrack when working at my job for months.  You’ll never, ever, ever, ever see me without the Gravity Dampener Trinket and the Bionic Legs.  You can’t make me, it’s my favorite combo and playing the game without it feels wrong.  It’s a scientific fact.

Recently Deep Field Games announced plans for additional content until 2026 and potentially beyond, and you might see me just disappear again in those times.  But that should tell you above all just how complete and incredible this game is to me.  I’ve already played through with most of my friends and they’re adding harder difficulties and even more sectors.  I will be back, I will don that GATE outfit, I’ll keep my character looking just like me, and I’ll keep singing the praises of a title that overcame multiple genres of disdain and the want to type.

You like peas?