A little while ago, Big Dumb Fun Games released their latest game. Even though the developer is quite happy with Salvage already, the game was released in Early Access. Salvage has been in EA for almost 3 months now, and should be closed to finished. We thought we’d take a look at the progress!
What is Salvage?
Salvage is a first-person sci-fi survival horror game. The game is influenced by and pays homage to some of the biggest sci-fi horror stories in the genre, including Alien and The Thing. You play as J Conrad, a salvage operator working commercial shadow space lanes.
How I spent my time
So, this is a horror and survival game. Turns out I suck at surviving. I spent most of my time dying because the monsters got to me. Since you spent most of your time in the dark, you don’t always see the monsters coming, and well, you die, and you start again. During my testing, the ‘save’ feature was added, and that was one of my notes. The gameplay is only about 30 minutes, but still, dying happens so often and so fast, that saving your game can’t hurt. I like how, even though a playthrough is only 30 minutes, the replay value is high, as promised by the devs. Not only do the maps change a bit, so do your enemies. There are multiple threats to look out for, and objectives will vary, keeping Salvage interesting. The creepy sounds help keep you on the edge of your seat as well. I feel like, for a game in Early Access, this game is already pretty neat. I didn’t encounter any real bugs. I did notice that the monsters sometimes seemed a little blind? Like they couldn’t see me even though I was right there? This only happened like once or twice, and maybe it was part of the experience, but it got me confused for a second. I hope Salvage gets controller support. Even though I don’t use a controller often myself, I got ready for this game with a controller in hand, and was a bit disappointed to find out I couldn’t use it. Other than this, the gameplay was smooth and everything was clear.
So, is Salvage worth it?
This isn’t going to be my next favourite game, because I suck at it and keep dying, but Salvage is worth your time for sure. Developer Mark Christopher promises even more enemy types, additional stories, locations and puzzles in the future, so I’m confident this game will only get better when it’s fully released.
Head of PC team. PC, Switch, and Xbox game reviewer. Also a marketeer, concert and animal lover, and photographer in training 🙂
Steam: Mauitje
Xbox: Mauitjexo