Survarium's Freeplay mode is something us S.T.A.L.K.E.R fans have been looking forward to for a veeeery long time. Long-teased for the in-development, free-to-play multiplayer shooter, it's a mode that plonks players in a big irradiated map home to mutants and loot and—stop me if you've heard this one before. Now, a few more details have finally come to light—and It's sounding like a mix between Stalker and DayZ.
As explained on the Survarium blog, the upcoming Freeplay map will be "much, much bigger" than a PvP one, with a limit on the number of players that can be in there at one time, for the sake of atmosphere and to ensure that meeting another human will be a rare event. As with the Stalker series, Vostok Games say that "the game world continues without the participation of the players. Mutants periodically attack the survivors and the survivors fight mutants or each other. Each event is a source of side quests for players".
Call of Pripyat's occasional terrifying radiation storms will be represented here too. Every two hours or so (in real time), a storm will occur, forcing players to find shelter or leave the map entirely. (Don't worry, you'll get a 15 minute warning before it happens.) If you don't, well, you're done for I'm afraid. There's reason to stick around, however. "After the storm has passed there will be a number of very valuable items scattered around the area. Survivors of the storm get a 10 minute head start to search for these prizes after which some of the prizes are destroyed and the location accepts newly connecting players".
Any items found in the Zone—sorry, on the Freeplay map—will only be saved if you manage to hoof it out. Die, and your loot will be fair game for the other players.
There won't be any 'sides' in Freeplay, but there will be a Karma system that rewards you for 'good' behaviour and punishes bad. There will also be several varieties of quest on offer—you can find more details about those here.
There's no date yet for Freeplay mode unfortunately, but you can try out Survarium's PvP modes in the ongoing open beta.
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Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.
