In just the past few years, battle royale games have exploded in popularity and become the most-played genre in the industry by far. Gaming’s latest trend shows no sign of slowing down, with more titles like Spellbreak on the way in 2020. But despite the fact that every other game company is vying to get its piece of the battle royale pie, one can still count the most prominent battle royale games on one hand. As juggernauts like Fortnite and PUBG continue to dominate the genre, Darwin Project understands that it’s better to innovate rather than imitate. After almost two years in early access, this unique class-based battle royale has undergone quite a few changes to become the full free-to-play game it is now. With a focus on speed, skill, and spectacle, Darwin Project creates an impressive range of entertaining possibilities in spite of its small list of tools and current lack of content.
Developed and published entirely by Canada-based Scavengers Studio, Darwin Project also takes place in the great white north. Set in a dystopian future among the Canadian Rocky Mountains, a new kind of test has been designed in preparation for an oncoming Ice Age. It’s a warped combination of social experiment and live entertainment, in which 10 “inmates” compete in a free-for-all bloodsport while being watched by an audience. Each armed with only an axe and a bow, the player-controlled inmates are also at the mercy of a player-controlled Show Director. The Show Director is charged with filming the battles, entertaining the spectators, and disrupting the inmates with things like nuclear missiles, gravity storms, and their own commentary. As inmates contend with these hazards (and each other), they must also find ways to keep warm in the freezing cold as the map gets smaller and smaller. Ultimately, there can only be one survivor.
As soon as the player is teleported into their very first match, they’ll be able to feel the difference between Darwin Project and other battle royale games. There is simply no need for a “sprint” button; the base movement speed for all inmates is so fast and smooth that one could compare it to an arena shooter. There isn’t actually much “shooting” involved, though - almost everything in Darwin Project is designed to drive players towards each other for tense and lethal close-range fights. The only projectile weapon in the game (aside from an unlockable turret) is the bow that each inmate is provided with, and arrows must be crafted individually. In true Hunger Games fashion, the bow isn’t very useful at long range unless the opponent is standing still, so most kills happen during a palm-sweating dance of axe swipes and arrow shots. Strikes can be parried, arrows can be stolen, and traps can be deployed, demanding that players mix up their approach if they want to win in this twitch-reflex mind game.
Darwin Project’s class system raises the game’s mobility and skill ceiling even higher. The Jet Wings, Grapple Gauntlet and Headhunter Drone (the three classes currently available) each have their own set of Overwatch-style abilities focused on vertical mobility, horizontal mobility, and hunting/gathering, respectively. Each one’s active and passive abilities give it a distinct playstyle with unique advantages over the other two (despite the competitive dominance of the Jet Wings right now), and all of them still allow a good amount of room for player experimentation. As part of each match, however, abilities must be unlocked using Darwinium, one of the two in-game resources. This is another major departure from other battle royale games: loot isn’t a very significant factor in Darwin Project. Wood is used to craft items like arrows and campfires, Darwinium is used to unlock and upgrade abilities, and chests contain traps and buffs - that’s it. This never feels limiting; on the contrary, it builds a more sensibly even playing field and eliminates the possibility of someone beating you just because they found a higher-grade weapon by chance.
The ever-shifting map of Darwin Project also differentiates itself from the battle royale norm. The snowy battleground is split into seven different zones, and there’s no “killer circle” closing in on the 10 inmates. With every match, the seven zones are cycled into a new combination of locales, each with their own environmental gimmicks. In addition to the much greater variety that this provides, zones are only closed off one at a time in random order - or by the Show Director themselves. The Director has a wide range of amusingly hazardous (or helpful) powers that they can cast on zones or players by using action points. None of these powers feel abusive or broken - the Director can’t just strike a player down with a lightning bolt, for example. Their purpose is to entertain both the inmates and the spectators, and the available powers smartly encourage that. The game’s Twitch integration can also makes matches feel like a genuine show by allowing viewers to comment and vote on the events, giving Darwin Project a comical sense of community and spectacle.
On the other hand, the game’s lack of alternative modes makes it a largely solo experience for the 10 people fighting to the death. There are no team-based playlists or limited-time modes at all, despite the fact that there was once a popular duos mode in the early access version of Darwin Project. This is most likely a result of its class system being balanced around free-for-all, but that only serves to highlight the game’s limited array of content at launch - as fun and variable as they are, three classes is a pretty small number for a full release. Unless you’re planning to actively stream the game as an inmate, don’t expect to play Darwin Project alongside your friends in its current state.
Its lean content may reflect the same kind of problem that many young multiplayer games have, but Darwin Project makes a little go a long way. All of its mechanics and features feed into one another extraordinarily well: the condensed, shifting map with a smaller number of players, the rapid pace leading to high-intensity close-range battles, and of course the Director role and spectator involvement all make for a thrilling and defiantly different battle royale. Darwin Project likely has a bright future ahead of it, and this is definitely a show worth checking out - especially since admission is free.
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Darwin Project is free to play on Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A PC code granting advance access to the full version was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.
