My initial worry was that this would force players, specifically the players fighting, to dance for their supper, attempting to entertain an invisible audience that they’re not even interacting with.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I had a revelation, but I certainly get the appeal in this instance. And as I meddled (and muddled) my way through my first stint as the Director, I started to wish I had an audience to enjoy this with me.
Viewers can vote on their favourite players, make suggestions to the Director and essentially participate in the game. They can play favourites, send players messages, disrupt fights and generate conflict, and even a bad Director can spice things up considerably. I put a target on their back and tried to get the rest of the players to hunt them down in the hopes of winning some prizes, and then to balance out the fight, I gave my victim temporary invincibility, giving them a fighting chance.ĭirector’s can heal and warm up players (cold is a killer and there isn’t always time to craft a fire), lock down zones so everyone has to flee, create gravity storms that allow players to leap like The Hulk (or get knocked all the way across the map with a single arrow), and even launch a nuke that kills everyone in the zone. After seeing them get a few kills under their belt, I decided to make things interesting. The sprawling, complex map means most players look completely lost, but this one knew what they were doing. The Director can go anywhere and follow anyone at the touch of a button, essentially becoming the ultimate spectator, but they can also guide the flow of a battle with an assortment of powerful abilities.Īs the Director, I clocked one player doing an awfully good job. Every match has an 11th player, flitting around the battlefield in the shape of an omnipresent drone. This is Darwin Project’s hook, and boy is it a good one. Battles can still be unexpectedly entertaining, however, and that’s mostly down to the Director. There’s a surprising dearth of ways to actually kill your enemy, and fights always devolve into a wild, flailing jumping match where nobody comes out looking good. It’s very much its own thing, however, and shakes up the burgeoning genre.Īt the start of a match, all of the players randomly spawn near some resources, and from there they must hunt each other down using their bow, axe and any traps they can scrape together. There’s the game show conceit, for one, and even fewer players (the single available mode pits 10 players against each other), and then there’s the focus on laying traps and crafting. The cartoony schtick might call to mind Fortnite, but Darwin Project is a lot closer to The Culling. Colour me surprised, then, that not only do I like it, I like it in part because of its pandering to video boys and girls. Audience participation is built into the very fabric of the game, to the point where players become entertainers. Even the main menu, where the ability to link your Twitch or Mixer account is the most prominent option, makes this abundantly clear. See, it’s unashamedly a game for streamers and their hungry audiences. I want every game to be good, but I confess that I was ready to hate Darwin Project. This week, Fraser is trying to put on a good show in chilly Canadian battle royale romp, Darwin Project. Premature Evaluation is the weekly column in which we explore the wilds of early access.