I'll be the first to tell you that I was extremely hesitant to buy this game. How many EA/Alpha/Beta even full release survival games do you know of, that are completely dead in terms of development? That's what was making me worry about this title.

But I'll tell you right now, it's not that way with this one.

These developers go above and beyond to show us their support for their game. They are working so hard to bring us a something so new and fresh to the survival franchise that it makes me excited to be apart of their EA development stage. I actually get excited to go out and hunt bugs because these guys are fixing them almost as fast as we report them. If you're worried about a dead dev team, who don't care for anything other then the money, then you wont have to worry about that here.

Pro's
- Semi Perma Death
You keep all unlocked perks and everything stored in your player owned house
- Safe-ish Area's From PvP'ers
Gaurds in this game are rutheless, they'll protect you! ( Not in 0.07 though, they're a bit, bugged you could say )
- 7 Classess to Choose From
Militia, Blacksmith, Merchant, Monk, Peasant, Hunter, Beggar. Each has their own strengths and weaknessess, they really on other classess for certain things, encouraging player interaction.
- Helpful and Friendly Community
Lots of these guys will go out of there way to help you.
- In no Way Does This Game Hold Your Hand
It may not be extremely hard to survive, but you'll have to LEARN your enviroments yourself. Are you use to a map and pin point location on a map? A line telling you directly where to go? Glowing resources from a mile away? NOPE, not here. Good luck finding your location on the map when you first start! This type of play style rewards the player for looking around the map and remembering their surroundings. You'll find yourself remembering land makers to travel, actually following roads and following street signs.
- A HUGE open world that looks beautiful
The world is big, and there's no fast traveling, so learn it, enjoy it, and appreciate it because you'll be seeing it a lot.

Cons
- EA
I don't even want to put bugs in the cons because it's Early Access... That's not really a con here, it's too be expected. If you have a bug, don't rage, report it to the devs so they can fix it!
- Not New User Friendly
As I said in the pro's, this game does not hold your hand at the beginning. But if you can get past that, and learn how to play, it's extremely rewarding. You'll actually feel like you accomplished something because the game didn't tell you exactly what you needed to do and when to do it.
- Not Optimized
Again, EA, it'll get better. My GTX 970 drops to 20 FPS in some area's, and you know what the Dev's say? " Tell me where that happens so I can fix it ", if that doesn't say " Amazing Dev's are awesome " Idk what does.

If you're looking for a open world and challenging Survival game with active developers, then you've come to the right place.

First review ever!
This game needs some positive response. But instead of telling you how promising this game is. How dedicated the devs are and the innovative take on the open world pvp crafting mmorpwtf is this game again... I will just tell new players what to expect.

1. you will die. Get over it, there's a surreal beauty to the semi\permadeath this game offers.

2. Permadeath? Yes! Hours of character development will go bye bye in an instant. But alas there's hope, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes you will start anew. With a few perks from your prior characters.

3. This game forces players to interact. Whether dancing around each other to establish friend or foe. Or trading for essential supplies. Grouping to survive a bandit hoard. You need them as much as they need you.

4. Just learning to survive in a medieval plague is a challenge. Sickness is everywhere, and will consume you eventually. Thus leading back to my second point.

5. class is everything. Play to your strength. Or utilize new strategies after failing miserably.

6. spend some time learning the game. cities are safer, guards are your friends, loot is everywhere and will keep you alive if only momentarily.

7. Staying alive is the only way to progress, how to survive is totally up to you. Callback to my fifth point.

8. Buy a house! It's a grind but well worth the effort. A safe place to stash your stuff. Except for that one time you forgot to lock the door and some pleb stole everything. Yes deeds transfer over.

9. Stick to one server.

10. potential is ripe for this one it will grow like a festering mold that will consume the magical fruit that is such an ambitious game.

10/10 hope springs eternal

After an Initial Shaky launch, The Black Death has been down voted due to the bugs and lack of content right from the start. It is an unfortunate occurrence in this day an age when a game such as this one comes out early access and people expect the full game and no problems while playing it. So this is why I’m writing this review to help out people deciding on whether or not to buy this Game.
What is the Black Death –
The Black death is an online survival crafting Game in which you spawn as a character of your chosen class and roam the plague ridden world of Mercia. Each class enables you to do different things in this world and allows for different play styles.
What Classes are there?
So far the basic classes available to you are the following
Merchant – Able to collect and craft the beginner items in the game and sell anything they find to make profit. This class is ideal for New players who are looking into the crafting mechanics of the Game.
Peasant – Able to carry the most amount in the game and also farm better items in the wilds, they can also farm seeds to create crops and have access to craft bows and eventually unlock the hunter class.
Militia – While lacking in any real crafting or farming skills these guys can deal and take much more damage than the other classes and also unlock the blacksmith character later on down the line.
Beggar – While not all that useful these guys do have much better survivability with the plague than the others and are also able to use dirty fighting.

The Main Review –
In my Opinion the black Death is a strong foundation for becoming a truly amazing survival crafting experience with its unique setting and easy to learn hard to master crafting tree. The Graphics are average and the sound is brilliant and the general feel of the game is one of the best I’ve seen yet. While this Game is Early Earl Access I have to stress there are a few bugs in the game and the combat is really rusty. What I mean by that is don’t join expecting to be Conan the Barbarian. As the combat system more often or not doesn’t register your hits which is frustrating. However, if used correctly you can easily kill off a few bandits. The crafting system is easy to use and it makes resource gathering pleasurable instead of a pain due to the simplicity design implemented. The overall Game may not be worth the steam price now but in a few patches with the constantly hard work development team this game will be brilliant. I found that the online community is brilliant with not much of the typical Kill on sight problems a lot of others games have such as DayZ, Ark etc etc.
Opinion –
Overall I would definitely recommend this game as it will only keep getting better and the Development team are really nice and friendly. The game gets meaningful updates and the overall experience is not affect by the few bugs that try and break the game. However, if you want to the full gaming experience and none of the early access problems then wait until the game is finished.
Hopefully I’ll see you in Mercia good SIR
Demon Gaming

Im a huge fan of crafting and survival games like Life is Feudal, Ark, Rust etc. I have been checking out this game for a while now and then made my mind to buy it.

Pros:
Overall athmosphere is great, Burnt down villages, piles of dead bodies etc.
It is kind a beautiful
Large 8km diameter map
People in servers are generally nice and helpful
Great community
Helpful, active DEVs

Cons:
Cities are empty
Bugs (hey its EA)

I can´t wait to more people to find this game, the cities will have merchants and stuff. Whole world of Mercia is waiting for an active RP groups.

If you like these kind a games, you are not afraid of bugs but you are willing to report those to help the DEVs improve this game, buy it!

9/10 would be peasant again :D

It have potential to be a good and immersive game. Devs are nice and approachable. Overall, a rough gem that could be polished (a lot).

Day 1: I left my parents farm to become a trader. Just outside Laketown I "stole" a sword from a fallen soldier. A sign of good omen i thought. I was traveling north when i ran into a bandit camp. Expecting loads of treasure i drew my sword and charged. I died not long after.

Day 2: Once again i start my journey as a trader. After 2 days of traveling i found my self at the interance of Laketown which was blocked with infected corpses. I left that town the same night with a soar throat. I was lost in the wilderness constantly coughing and sneezing. When i thought there was no longer hope for me i was disconnected from the server and had to start from scratch again.

Day 3: This time i will start my journey as a hoarding farmer. With my giant basket on my back i will hoard every item and become rich. 2 days later i had my own farm, had a soar back and was very hungry.

10/10 would start again

Yes it is in Alpha, yes it is buggy, but I do enjoy this game. It really does have potential and I feel like the developers are putting out consistent, meaningful updates. There are a lot of holes in the game but the foundation is really solid as a survival/crafting/commerce game. I like the fact that each class has their own specific skills, and all have their own niche in the community that makes people work together. At first I was paranoid about being ganked immediately, because banditry is part of this game. What I have found though, is that your class makes you more valuable to others than the loot off of your corpse.

I played as a Smith (blacksmith). Smiths can make the best armor and weapons in the game. After mining a substantial amount of ore on my own I had a decent sum of coin and skill points. I bought a house to keep my loot in, and I decided to invest my skill points in gold smelting. Gold smelting is specific to the Smith and I found that it is a good way to make coin. Now, mining takes a bit a time and the ore is very heavy. So, seeing as I had coin, and the means to make more coin, I decided to employ a Peasant (farmer) with little coin and large inventories to mine and run ore to me to smelt. I also bribed a Militia (fighter) player with an offer of armor that only blacksmiths can make. The Militia player's job was to use his fighting capabilities to go and slay animals for their pelts, which I promptly turned to leather and used in his armor making. Each of us profited from the exchange more than we could on our own.

I say all this to say that the game has potential, it continues to get better, and the more people that play, the better the game gets. I hope to see you in game.

This is an interesting concept and if updates are forthcoming could be a great game. It is currently in the beginning stages of early access.
The different character classes are all interesting each with their own story and specialisation. I like the scenery and the realism. The world map is big enough to immerse yourself in without getting bored and there is plenty of scope for open world exploration/ survival style of play.
There are major improvements needed though. The NPCs spawn and disappear randomly with stilted or broken animations. There are pigs and sheep which will disappear into walls. If it’s raining outdoors, you will often find it is also raining indoors, and yes there was a roof. Once these bugs are fixed I look forward to playing the game some more and I hope the player base increases too. It would also benefit from a tutorial.

game is good but la la bou bacon aint got muscles yet so combat takes years...
plz donate muscles peeps!
La la bou bacon need it to play this game!

I must admit the game has HUGE potential! It's only v0.08 but it has a chance to be epic proportions. The cities are well made, lot's of concept to work with, devs are friendly. I wish only they would lower the price for now so we have more people playing.