Hands on with Open Country

I have always enjoyed games, where there isn’t a main goal, per say, but more freedom to discover things and enjoy them at your own pace. Open Country is a new game from the folks behind the long running Cabela series of games, continuing that love of the great outdoors. Thanks to 505 Games, I was able to sink sometime into the game, the question remains though, should you venture out into the Open Country?

Now while the game is close to release, the version I had access to was still from an earlier build, so there were issues with textures loading in, amongst other things. But the gameplay on offer was solid, more on that in a bit though, before you venture out into the Open Country, you have to understand the reason why your character ventures out there. They are stuck in a corporate job, living in a big city, though unnamed does look like New York and a lunch time epiphany takes place, causing them to quit their job and venture out into the wild outdoors. While there isn’t a lot to push your character out of the concrete jungle, it does resonate, because let’s face, who hasn’t looked at a job in their past, or even today and thought I would quit if I could. Once they have arrived, the adventure begins, well delivering supplies does, but that requires you to venture out.

While the first hour I played felt a bit fetch-questy, it did give me a chance to enjoy what was being show, without the complicated need to understand dozens of mechanics on my own. The first mission was to take some supplies out to a ranger, who eventually hires you as an assistant, but as they are a while away, they task you with setting up a camp, by collecting materials and building almost everything from scratch. The system doesn’t explain a lot, but it really didn’t need to, as I was exploring the region near where the camp had to be built, I picked up a few dozen logs, which managed to fit in my backpack, it was later, after collecting some sticks and stones, that I stopped moving fast, realising I was weighed down. While the game does explain some mechanics, the rest are sort of just there and make sense, when you think about them.

With the camp established, the dam water stopped, and a few other missions completed, I was finally given leave to break out a gun and start taking down some wildlife and again, while the game explained the basics, somethings were left up to me to work out. For example, on the hud, there was a picture of my gun, including a circle, which was great and marked at 100%, but the more I used it, the lower the % went down and the circle started to lose some colour, indicating some wear on the gun. Which makes sense, guns in the real world have to be taken care of, you can shoot any weapon without it needing to be cleaned and repaired, but I didn’t play much more with the guns, to need to worry about it here. Other elements that I got to check out were hunger and the day/night cycle, at this point if you have played any survival game, they will seem familiar to you as well.

The one area of the game that I was not expecting to enjoy as much as I did was with the dog, oh yes, you can also have a dog with you in your outdoor adventures. The dog must be found first and then bribed into joining you, but once you do, you will be rewarded with more chances for gameplay to be discovered. The best example is when you are on the hunt for birds, or rabbits, you can interact with your dog and have them sniff out nearby critters, save you aimlessly wandering the map. But it is not just searching for prey, should you take down a bird in the air, rather than going to hunt on the ground for it, you can opt to send your dog, to go and fetch your prize. The dog is useful, and I was surprised at how many options there were in interacting with them, I mean the fact that your dog has its own hunger meter, means you have more to consider than just yourself.

The game also has an in-depth crafting, which I touched upon earlier with the camp, but you can craft tools to aid in starting bushfire, a bow and arrows to allow for silent hunt and tools to help you survive. In addition to crafting there are also a vast number of skills to unlock, there are multiple levels per skill, meaning that if you want to get the best result, you need to ensure you take the time to upskill yourself. For example, there is one skill called Outdoorsman Metabolism, which allows for your hunger to deplete slower, after eating and while at the first level, it gives a small buff, at the highest, you get a 50% bonus.

Open Country is a game that has a lot of appeal, but there are rough edges, as I said before, this was an earlier build, so visual oddities were not my concern. The issue is around the structure of the missions and world, I mean the word Open is in the name, but it is not a true open world, then again ‘Large and multiple maps County’ doesn’t sound the same. Another concern is that of the audio, the dialogue comes across as stiff, I don’t know if this was earlier recordings or if this is how it will be in the end, if that is the case, that is not good. Open Country is almost here, there is a lot going for it, but I would wait for the final release, before quitting my job and moving to this country.