and we're back with another episode of before you buy that show we give you some straight up gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games releasing as usual it's me Jake and today we're talking about once human this is another free-to-play like live service game releasing the same week as another free-to-play live service game at the first descendant that one didn't really look like my thing so uh Falcon and the team checked out the first descendant while I jumped into this game once human for the first two days post early access launch so this this is First Impressions this one is an open world sci-fi survival third person shooter with some quirky elements a little bit a horror and honestly uh it's kind of like what the day before was saying it was going to be until that game turned out to be deemed uh by most players to be a scam it's got that uh post-apocalyptic MMO version of the division feel to it but even if it partially makes good on some of those Concepts it's still got a ways to go after spending some time with this net EAS published game up front man uh this game isn't going to interest some of you it has all the typical Early Access trappings glitches server problems pretty frequent server wipes unfinished content and it also has a lot of the live service trappings a battle pass multiple currencies multiple store pages to buy skins emotes and it all gets convoluted so much and cobbles it together in various complicated systems all in the hopes of not being compelling reward reing or deep but just to get you to spend more money it has its moments as a game but not really a lot of surprises here we'll talk about that stuff more in a bit but before I start complaining what exactly is once human well you pick a server default is PVE you create a character with a pretty robust character creator uh you can get pretty goofy and weird with it if you want and I really appreciate that then you jump into a small tutorial area where the convoluted story is kind of drip-fed to you as well as the basic mechanics you live in a world ravaged by Stardust and other worldly forces basically all all you need to know is that the world is basically destroyed by cool big interdimensional monsters and there's a kind of Rift in time there's a very trippy death stranding vibe to a lot of it and when the game actually shows it it's pretty cool what's left of the world they're bands of survivors with a certain group having some special magical sci-fi abilities and you're one of them you're kind of teaming up with some beings that are kind of connected to the origin of this whole world ending problem and you set out to close Rifts uh find all these special spires and I I guess save the world there's a lot of lore here a lot of stuff is dumped right on you and it's pretty messy but there's at least somewhat of a through line like as much as I'm doing an awful job of explaining it after a few hours I was able to at least get a decent grip as to what the writers are saying is going on with this world ultimately not a lot of it even matters it's the gameplay it's the grind uh there are main mission objectives there are side quests you can stumble upon random events in the world and a bunch of other stuff buried in a bunch of menus it has the typical Survival game track progression where some of the early objectives are just going through the motions you know cut down a tree build a house build a furnace Forge a pickaxe get some ore craft some uh pants I make a gun and make a more complicated Forge thing for special ingredients and it just keeps going building and crafting does work fairly well pretty smooth for the most part and even though I usually half ass my little house builds I've seen some cool ones out in the wild uh but the player territories and builds and campsites are everywhere and some of the progression is fairly interesting it's got a solid skill tree where you unlock the ability to craft new things and get access to new things and it it's pretty in-depth and lengthy the way it flows kind of remind me of uh po worlds if you saw that recently and along with that you're slowly unlocking specialization for your character as well as this other form of slotting in perks that is all well and fine but just feels way too convoluted for its own good it doesn't really add to anything at least not for me personally it's not satisfying but with crafting weapons and gear uh the weapons and stuff seem really solid there are a lot of blueprints to pursue and find and then you can make handguns SMGs all types of shotguns rifles Magnums and a variety of melee weapons I like the customization you know I've gotten silencers and cool scopes for a lot of weapons and the guns and the gear have little perk slots where you can slot things in like improve pistol damage better melee stuff like that and the actual combat feels decent you know the game takes a while to get difficult for a while you know you're just kind of like mowing down boring zombie mobs but if you Trek deeper into the map you'll find some fun and kind of weird challenging stuff melee is really simple but I I I found the animations and the hits somewhat satisfying the Gunplay is third person so like you have Dodge roll Crouch Sprint shoot type of stuff uh aiming is over the shoulder or in first person and all that works well enough with decent weapon sounds and hit feedback as of right now it's only mouse and keyboard controls again you know it's early access so some features and options are limited but the controls feel responsive and it helps me feel capable you'll also gain special abilities to use in the field and one of the most notable early ways is uh to have a little tiny creature in your backpack you can find these creatures and store them at your base and choose which one to bring with you they have different use cases like uh outright attacking buffing or creating stuff in the environment to help out it's a nice little creative spin but also is explained and dragged out in a weird over complicated way like a lot of the game systems where really it's just like hey uh you can get these little guys to help you press a button it's also another feature in a pretty endless list of things this game just dumps on you crafting Base building leveling up weapon customizations and weapon mods vehicles modding those Vehicles camping hunting monster collecting among others I commend them for having all that stuff that's a lot of things that players want crammed in their games but it's like a jack of all trades master of none and I think that leads to my biggest problem with the game yes it's built as a live service game it has all the moral and financial failings the average hardcore gamer would have a heart attack over but I I played for hours and didn't spend any money it's hard to judge this in the early hours because these things change over time so they I they could totally crap the bed on balancing and monetization but really it's not that stuff that bothered me as much as just how soulless the game often feels at many points this game just kind of feels like a pubg mobile asset flip cash in you're wandering around sparse sometimes frankly ugly environments doing busy work designed specifically just to keep you playing this gaml Loop this thing is in many other games and players often love it but I think those games just do a better job of making it feel worthwhile or just have a special hook or spin to it here you're just a generic character talking to lifeless NPCs about whatever thing is designed to get you to continue to grind now like I said I've seen this stuff in games I've seen the good side of it I've seen the bad side of it I've expressed my personal distaste for it before but it's different with Once human because it feels like it kind of has an identity crisis on the one hand it's all the stuff I just mentioned but then every so often you get splashes of what the game could be dude the real creativity the flashy cinematics and trailers and marketing and screenshots LED you to believe this is a moody atmospheric death stranding meets the division with spooky abandoned towns looming giant monsters in the fog and cool sci-fi elements that stuff is there but it takes a while to get to it and every so often in the early hours you will come across this stuff clearing out a spooky abandoned house on a rainy night with an assault rifle and your flashlight maybe with a couple of players you're grouped up with maybe a stumble upon a town obscured by fog and strange objects floating in the sky suddenly a rift opens in the sky and a big nasty gooey enemy crawls its way out through the universe and then you got to throw grenades at it you know boss battles where you fight a strange looking scary thing and maybe pick up a big Gatling gun to blow it away the game has these moments sprinkled throughout like this stuff is in there it's where you can see the real potential the real raw idea but then it's all drowned out by endless Bland lifeless environments crappy player-built houses everywhere endless menus and explainers amounting to little and all of those elements I talked about earlier that are just there for the sake of having them all to check all the boxes when the game does that awesome stuff like the spooky stuff it's memorable but then it's everything else around it and this is going to sound kind of harsh it just kind of feels like a mobile game with basic Bland assets and the game is apparently also coming to Mobile by the way so I guess it kind of makes sense and this is an early access game it still needs plenty of stuff you know more voice acting more bug fixing more Vehicles more content more balancing all the player feedback and all that stuff the game has a foundation to improve upon but will those Bland moments ever improve I don't know I I think I just really like a version of this game that was quality over quantity less filler less generic BS and more of that original basic Vision it feels kind of scattershot you know hey I guess you got to make money I don't know that is ultimately the point of all video games but especially free-to-play live service games it is free so you don't really lose much skin in the game if you try it maybe try it if you don't feel like spending any money right now I don't know um maybe you think I'm just being grumpy check it out for yourself but there's just too many of these types of games now you need to do something really special to really stand out and I think in this early stage right now unfortunately once human is squandering those special standout moments but hey maybe it'll get better maybe I'll be in the minority these are just First Impressions and that's a before you bu you know how this goes by now I give you some pros some cons and some personal opinion and now I want to hear yours down in the comments have you spent any time with Once human like I said it's free I know the title it says before you buy it's just what we call these videos okay we know that you're not buying a free-to-play game we see the comments it's just I don't know leave us alone man so let me know what you think about this one if you jumped in we're all in a Level Playing Field here let me know if you love it let me know if you hate it let me know if you think it just needs a little something else let's talk about anything once human down in the comments now if you enjoyed this video clicking the like button is all you got to do it really helps us out and if you're new maybe consider subscribing hitting that notification Bell because we put out videos every single day but as always thanks for watching we'll see you guys next time [Music] [Music] ground