Esports organization IEM [Intel Extreme Masters] has announced on Reddit that for the first time since 2011, it will not feature League of Legends events in its current season. The change isn't the result of declining interest in LoL, however, but came about as the result of conflicts with Riot's own increasingly loaded schedule.
"In the current LoL landscape during the off season Western players are being traded or are on vacation while Korea and China are running tournaments with their teams locked in. Working around those limitations didn't seem like the right way to move forward," the IEM message says. "Our 2017 events won't happen to be in a period where pro LCS teams are free to compete. In discussions with Riot it was also determined that LCS wouldn't pause for Katowice. This means that for the first time since 2011 LoL won't be there."
The message acknowledged LoL as a "major part of the growth" of IEM, and left the door open for the game's return in future seasons. "As I write this, I am not sure if we will or will not run LoL events in IEM in the future. Should scheduling events around LCS become easier, I would certainly like us to," it says.
That doesn't sound likely to happen. A message posted today by Riot announced the forthcoming launch of a new regional competition called Rift Rivals, and said that "while we remember and cherish epic moments from the past, we believe that withdrawing for the upcoming season is the right way to go." More to the point, the studio sounds firmly focused on its own ideas, and tournaments, for the long-term future.
"It’s our goal to balance regional play with consistently high-quality international events that pit top teams from different regions. Regional play creates meaningful connections between fans and pros/teams and promotes positive things like deeper team investment and larger pro salaries—critical for a league that will last beyond the short term. International events are exciting displays of the highest level of play from the best teams in the world," Riot said.
"Looking at 2018 and beyond, we believe we could improve the way we structure our seasons around regional and international events, so we're taking a few steps to address that—some immediate, and some in the longer term."
In the same vein, it won't simply pile more international competitions on top of existing regional action in order to help ensure that pro players don't burn out. "Creating an uninterrupted offseason for pros in 2017 was one of the factors behind our decision to withdraw from the IEM series," it continued. "Additionally, the off-season is an important time for teams to evaluate potential roster changes and for players to consider their career options. We don’t want to make the off-season more stressful for pros by making the period they have to make roster changes significantly shorter."
The future of the Hitman series was put in jeopardy earlier this month when Square Enix announced plans to "withdraw from the business" of developer Io Interactive. The situation seemed to brighten shortly after, when a rumor surfaced indicating that Io will retain the rights to Hitman and proceed with work on the second season. But an update tweeted today indicates that less than two weeks after the studio was put on the block, it has been forced to let employees go.
The number of employees affected by the cuts isn't known, nor is the status of Square Enix's efforts to sell the studio. It's obviously not good news, but the potential upside is that reduced staff levels could help make Io more attractive to potential buyers. It's also possible—although this is purely speculation—that the layoffs are a condition of a buyout agreement that's been reached but not yet announced.
A Square Enix rep said the company has no further comment at this time. I've reached out to Io Interactive for more information, and will update if I hear more.
We wrote yesterday that Valve had hired on an undisclosed number of developers from the Kerbal Space Program team, a noteworthy occurrence because when Valve hires indie dev teams, games like Counter-Strike and Portal are sometimes the result. Valve confirmed the hire but revealed nothing about the details, saying only that a proper announcement would be coming soon.
In a statement issued shortly after the hiring came to light, however, Kerbal studio Squad clarified that these were employees that had left Squad, then later joined Valve. This isn't a Portal-like situation, in other words, where Valve has absorbed up a full, existing dev team. Further eliminating any confusion, Squad added that it's still operating, and maintaining KSP, as an independent outfit.
"There was news today that former KSP developers have joined Valve. We want to clarify that Squad is not joining Valve, and we continue to be an independent studio with the core KSP team remaining at Squad, hard at work on the improved KSP for consoles port, Update 1.3 and the Making History Expansion. The KSP community shouldn't be concerned about this news having any impact on the game," the studio said.
"Regarding the developers joining Valve, it is important to note that we have had several people working on our team over the years, and it is common among development studios for team members to come and go. If some of them joined Valve, it is on their own behalf and we wish them good luck and success in their current and future endeavors. So do not worry, everything continues normally with KSP."
In an email, Squad clarified that no current KSP developers had left the studio to move to Valve. "These people departed Squad prior to joining Valve," a rep said. "We do not know who they are exactly or how many there are, either."
Valve's pickup of former KSP developers remains interesting because whatever they're working on is apparently big enough to warrant its own announcement, and any new Valve project (if that's what it turns out to be) is worth keeping an eye on. But I'm actually glad to hear that Squad is remaining independent, too. Kerbal Space Program, in design and execution, is about as indie as it gets, and you can call me sentimental if you like but it's nice to know it's going to stay that way.
I live in a city, so I can't readily go on a quiet, contemplative journey of self-reflection. I'd get partway through an abstract metaphor for my deepest regrets, only to step in the remains of a half-finished chicken caesar wrap. Videogame protagonists have a better time of it, as evidenced by a growing number of first-person games that use a remote, isolated environment—often with a cave—as a canvas to tell more personal stories.
The Fidelio Incident is the latest such game. (Yes, there's a cave.) It begins with a plane crash over Iceland. You play as survivor Stanley, and must search the strewn wreckage of the plane looking for Stanley's wife, Leonore. She's still alive, and, while you can't converse, she can talk to you via a damaged radio. As you make your way up the mountain towards the black smoke at the top, Leonore asks you to find the pages of her diary so as to hide your true identities before rescuers arrive. And so, the mystery unfolds, page by page, as you traverse the frozen wilderness.
It's a beautiful environment, but deadly. Hypothermia sets in quickly, shown by ice crystals forming at the corner of your screen. Stay out in the cold too long and you'll die, so Stanley must move between heat sources—steam pipes, geothermal geysers and bits of burning fuselage. It doesn't quite work as a system. Die, and you simply respawn at a nearby heat source to try again, undercutting any real sense of danger.
The Fidelio Incident is linear, but some light puzzling means a few areas open up—forcing you to work between heat sources to find diary pages to progress. Later, you'll find valves and levers, and must redirect steam pipes to clear swarms of insects. The simplicity of these puzzles makes them feel like busywork designed to pad out the couple of hours The Fidelio Incident takes to complete.
The mountain becomes increasingly weird and unsettling as you progress towards the top, becoming a reflection of the personal demons of its protagonist. Much of the backstory is filled in by Leonore's diary, the majority of which concerns republicans in Northern Ireland during the '80s. What exactly Stanley and Leonore are running from forms the crux of The Fidelio Incident's emotional payload, but it's not a spoiler to say that the main character is carrying some major baggage.
As is often the case with this type of game, while the setting can feel dangerousand fantastical, the underlying story is more personal and real. I enjoyed the story, and especially reading about the early interactions between Stanley and Leonore, but the more abstract elements worked less well. I couldn't help but recognise the template set by The Fidelio Incident's genre forebears, most notably Dear Esther.
While some abstract sequences are a little more out there—is the mountain a metaphor?—the broad emotional journey hits many similar notes. The Fidelio Incident is beautiful and introspective, but leans a little too heavily on the genre's now firmly established cliches.
Since the release of Alien: Covenant I’ve seen a few people ranking the famously inconsistent series from best to worst. Resurrection reliably festers at the bottom of most people’s lists, and for many Covenant isn’t that far off. But I also noticed a lot of people including Alien: Isolation in their list, and often rubbing shoulders with the acclaimed first two films. This is a testament to the quality and authenticity of the game, but also suggests that people are getting something out of it that the latest film failed to provide.
Covenant was marketed and described in preview coverage as a return to Alien’s horror roots. But anyone expecting a slasher flick in space with none of the earnest philosophical melodrama that weighed Prometheus down will have been disappointed. Covenant is Prometheus 2: Prometheus Harder, book-ended by a retread of the original film minus any the mystery or suspense. People complained about the absence of facehuggers and xenomorphs in Prometheus, and this is the result. Proof that you should never listen to people.
I have a lot of issues with Alien: Covenant. I had (perhaps blinkered) faith in Ridley Scott, convinced he had one more great Alien movie in him, but I left the cinema feeling much the same as I did when I emerged blinking and bewildered from Prometheus in 2012. But one of its biggest problems is showing you far too much of the alien. The original film hid the creature in the shadows, giving you only brief, close-up glimpses of it. This was because Bolaji Badejo’s rubber suit would have looked unconvincing under the glare of a bright light—a limitation that ultimately made the movie scarier.
The alien is just as scary and, arguably, sometimes scarier when you can't see it at all
In Covenant, however, Scott had no such limitations. And thanks to the ‘magic’ of computer animation, the last quarter of the film is heaving with brightly-lit shots of the alien scuttling about. Not only does the CG feel weightless and unconvincing, but it turns the enigmatic creature that terrorised the crew of the Nostromo so effectively into just another movie monster. It simply isn’t scary anymore, and the frustrating thing is, Scott knew it. “Fans wanted to see more of the original monster,” he said in an interview. “I thought it was cooked, but I was wrong.” See what I mean about never listening to people?
But the blame doesn’t lie with the xenomorph itself. It’s how it’s used. One of Isolation’s greatest strengths is that it understands that the creature is just as scary—and, arguably, sometimes scarier—when you can’t see it at all. Just hearing the distant thud of its footsteps or it clanging through a vent is enough to make your heart race. And it makes those rare moments when it finally does reveal itself, slithering out of the shadows, even more powerful. And I think this is at the core of why many consider the game to be a more effective, genuine Alien experience than anything in the last two films. Because it reminds us that the xenomorph still has the innate power to terrify.
Not to mention the fact that there’s no ponderous, long-winded section in the middle of Isolation where one Working Joe teaches another how to play the flute. The scenes in the Engineer temple in Covenant are Scott at his most indulgent and pseudo-philosophical. It grinds the film to a halt and fills your head with tedious exposition. It answers questions that didn’t need to be answered, hammering the final rusty nails into the coffin of any beguiling mystery this series once had. Knowing David created the xenomorphs adds nothing and takes everything away from them.
When the Nostromo lands on LV-426 and the crew discovers the derelict ship, the fear of the unknown is palpable. Giger’s ship is utterly alien and inscrutable, which makes the descent into its bio-mechanical depths simmer with suspense. The same scene is repeated in Covenant on the Engineer planet, but the near-identical shot of the crashed ship has no impact whatsoever. You immediately know that it must have once belonged to some blue guys, and that it’s probably filled with facehugger eggs or vials of black goo.
On the other hand, Isolation keeps the mystery intact. It tells a small story about one character in one space station and is all the better for it. There’s a lot more to it than the first Alien, of course, with acres of backstory about Sevastopol to devour. But it’s still positively parochial compared to the bloated, sprawling mythology set up in Prometheus. The story is the weakest part of Isolation, but it’s really just an excuse to lock you in a confined space with an alien—and that’s all it needs to be. The really interesting stories in Isolation are the ones you create yourself when you’re evading and outsmarting the alien.
Scott has more Alien sequels planned, and with each one I feel like it’ll sail deeper into the pack ice. When he made the first film he was a bold, untested young director with an uncompromising vision and a remarkable eye for detail. And I feel like that’s what the next film needs. An emerging talent who can come at it from a fresh, contemporary perspective and make it vital again. But until then, unless the next film really is a return to its horror roots, Isolation is the closest thing we have to that original masterpiece.
While it's apparently entirely possible to win a game of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds without firing a shot, for those of us less committed to pacifism, finding and firing guns is the key to victory. This guide will take you through the most potent firearms on offer, discussing the key points you need to know about each weapon and offering tips on how best to modify them.
Updated August 2017 with new weapons and some adjustments to the previous rankings.
Assault rifles
🌟 SCAR-L: What sets the SCAR above all other assault rifles is the ability to control the recoil when firing, particularly when you have an array of modifications attached. It’s the only AR that can comfortably use automatic fire at medium range.
Groza: A new care package-only assault rifle, the Groza is similar to the AKM, but with a higher rate of fire and slightly different recoil. It's clearly a beast: a tough gun to control from the hip, but aiming down the sights makes a nice straight vertical line and the recoil can be managed. It's worth picking up if you find one, or are brave enough to hit up a supply crate. Have some 7.62 ammo ready.
M16: A great ‘off the shelf’ option that requires fewer modifications than the SCAR to reach its full potential. The M16 is fast and accurate in single shot mode compared to other ARs, while burst fire is best limited to close range. It has just has three attachment slots: magazine, barrel, and optics.
AKM: Does the most damage per bullet, meaning it’s an exceptional tool if you’re able to land multiple headshots, but heavy recoil and a slightly slower rate of fire mean it’s probably the weakest Assault Rifle overall (unmodified), with a poor automatic fire mode—though the best players can take advantage of it's power. For best results stick to single-shot above 20m and always try to land those headshots (it should only take 2 headshots to down an enemy—if you can land them). Only has three modification slots: magazine, barrel, and optics.
M416: Offers similar levels of modification to the SCAR, with the option to add a tactical stock that is required if you plan on using automatic fire anything above 20 meters. Not quite as stable as the SCAR, but with a faster rate of fire it’s still very viable. A good all-round weapon that doesn’t truly excel at anything.
Recommended assault rifle mods:
Vertical grip/angled grip – The angled grip improves stability to a lesser degree and offers faster aiming down the sight, but you should prioritize the stability boost of a vertical grip to get the most out of your AR.
Compensator, suppressor, flash hider – one of the key choices you need to make. Suppressors are deadly on all assault rifles, severely limiting your opponent’s ability to locate you through directional audio. A compensator steadies recoil which can be vital if you’re planning to fire in full-auto at anything above close range. If you find a suppressor, prioritize it over a compensator unless you have another suppressed weapon. Recent community testing has shown that the flash hider reduces recoil to the same degree as the compensator, while giving the added utility of hiding gun-fire, making it a great pickup.
Extended mag – Simply more useful than a Quickdraw mag. Having those extra bullets at the ready fundamentally means that they're ready to fire, rather than reloading more quickly.
2x 4x or 8x scopes – Assault rifles truly shine with decent optics, the superior magnification of an 8x allows you to focus on headshots.
SMGs
🌟 Vector: A tiny package of doom that incapacitates quickly and is limited only by its short range. There's no weapon I'd rather have in the last moments of most matches, where I'm enclosed in a small area. Nearly always best used in full-auto, firing in bursts to retain accuracy beyond 15m.
UMP: The bridge between SMGs and assault rifles, with the slower rate of fire offset by limited recoil and a better effective range (30-40m) than the Vector. The UMP requires a lot of modifications to reach its full potential. Fire it in full-auto to take people down quickly. Its 9mm ammo should be plentiful.
Uzi: Fast, but wildly inaccurate. With a stock the Uzi becomes far more stable, but it’s still terrible at anything above 15-20 meters.
Recommended SMG mods:
Extended magazine – Absolutely vital to make the Vector and Uzi in particular shine, as the base, magazines are so shallow.
Suppressor – High rate of fire plus near-silence is an insane combo.
Vertical foregrip – Gives a vital boost to both the Vector and the UMP’s effectiveness at range by steadying the recoil.
Uzi stock – If you have your heart set on using an Uzi, be sure to pick this up to improve stability and lessen recoil.
Sniper rifles
🌟 AWM: Immensely powerful. The AWM is the only gun in the game that will one-hit KO against a level 3 helmet. With exceptional range, in the right hands it’s an invaluable tool for taking down well-geared foes. You'll only find it in care packages, along with its .300 Magnum (7.62×67mm) ammo type.
SKS: The second-weakest long gun, fulfilling its role as a marksman rifle rather than a fully-fledged sniper weapon. I tend to prioritize it below assault rifles unless there’s a handy sniper rifle silencer to attach to it, due to the rarity of sniper mods and the selection of solid single-fire assault rifles.
Kar-98k: A fantastic rifle, with decent iron-sights and deadly accuracy. Try to take the extra moment to line up headshots while operating the Kar-98—the slow rate of fire often means you’ll get limited opportunities to shoot and it can be difficult to hit targets that are moving defensively. A single headshot will KO enemies wearing anything below a level 3 helmet. Body shots will require at least two shots, or three against a level 3 vest.
M24: Kind of like the AWM’s little brother—not quite as powerful but still highly effective at distance. If you want to hide in the hills and take potshots, this will be your weapon of choice thanks to its relatively abundant 7.62mm ammunition.
Mk14 EBR: We haven't hit a supply drop with one of these yet, so we can't speak from experience, but here are the details: The Mk14 is a new mid-power marksman rifle with a tripod that increases stability while prone, and a higher bullet velocity than the SKS, Kar98, and M24. The Mk14 EBR and the VSS below are the only marksman rifles with automatic firing modes. We wouldn't say no to one if we came across it.
VSS: The VSS is an unusual weapon. It comes with a permanent scope, and though its subsonic 9mm ammo is weak and tough to put on mark at long distances, the suppression makes it hard for targets to gauge your location. If you’re struggling to find optics and assault rifles, it can give you medium range capability in a pinch, and could come in handy in the late game.
Recommended sniper mods:
8x scope, 15x scope – An AWM or M24 with no scope is a curse in disguise—they have no iron-sights.
Suppressor – Nothing in Battlegrounds is more terrifying than realising a sniper is shooting at you, without being able to tell which direction they’re firing from.
Pistols are not in an especially good place at the moment. They're weak, inaccurate, and have bad iron-sights. If you’re using a pistol during any stage other than the first five minutes of a game, the better option is probably hiding and avoiding combat altogether.
Choose whichever pistol matches ammo types with your other weapons to save inventory space and then hope you never have to shoot it. Beware the awful reload time on the R1895.
Shotguns
🌟 S686: The classic double-barrelled shotgun is probably the most effective tool for extreme close quarters. If you miss both shots you’re probably dead, but the two rounds are enough to finish off even the most heavily armored enemy and can be fired almost simultaneously. With the longest effective range of any shotgun (around 12m) and the fastest time to kill a fully armored enemy, the more modern shotguns pale in comparison.
S12K: The S12K is great if you’re worried about accuracy, with five rounds in a mag and a speedy rate of fire you can comfortably spam it at close ranges. You can't attach a choke, which means it’s less effective than other shotguns at anything beyond close range, while it does slightly less damage per shot. Uses assault rifle modifications (don’t even think about sticking a scope on it though).
S1897: The pump-action shotgun is, like all weapons of this class, incredibly powerful at close range (up-to around seven meters). However, the slow rate of fire can spell your doom if you miss even once, making it unforgiving.
Recommended shotgun mods:
Shotgun choke – gives the S686 or S1897 a much-needed boost to range, making them effective at picking off wounded enemies at distance, or throwing buckshot into cars full of enemies.
Extended mag – Makes room for a couple more cartridges in the S12K.
Melee
The frying pan the only melee option worth taking right now, primarily because it can save your ass.
Special weapons
M249: Another care package only weapon, the huge 100 round clip, strong damage and speedy rate of fire make this a potent tool for car destruction, while at mid-range it can tear exposed targets to pieces. The M249 is even surprisingly effective at long ranges, particularly if you go prone and deploy the tripod (this happens automatically). Try to fire it in bursts or you’ll quickly lose accuracy.
Crossbow: A weapon for people who want to share clips of themselves pulling off clutch shots. With damage second only to the AWM, the crossbow combines with poor range and a slow projectile travel time to give you a weapon that is extremely limited in usefulness, but extremely satisfying to kill with. The bolts fall to the ground quickly after a few dozen meters.
It is wonderfully stealthy, though. A quiver attachment slightly improves the dreadful reload time.
Tommy Gun: Something of a novelty weapon right now. The Tommy-gun is hard to control and doesn’t do much damage, but the fast-rate of fire and 100-round drum mag means it’s exceptional for shooting vehicles. The fact that it’s limited to care package drops means you’ll probably be quite angry if you risked everything for this underwhelming antique. If you have a Vector or UMP with all the mods they’re simply more reliable weapons for killing people quickly.
Inspired by Brendan Greene's recent Mod Hall of Fame inductee Battle Royale, Playerunknown's Battlegrounds has impressed since arriving in Early Access two months ago. Besides doubling its playerbase and hitting two million sales inside its first four weeks, it also raised over $220,000 for charity shortly thereafter.
The MMO-meet-survival game has now revealed the patch notes for its second monthly update—which will hit stable servers on Thursday, May 25 at 1am PST/9am BST and everything else in between.
Similar to previous updates, the latest list of tweaks and adjustments is fairly extensive. It can be viewed in its entirety over here, however highlights include the addition of the VSS suppressed sniper rifle with a built-in 4X scope. Found only in care packages, it takes 9mm ammo.
In addition to a new, sidecar-less motorcycle, the update also introduces air control of motorbikes, which prompted PlayerUnknown himself to post this earlier today:
God willing, Battlegrounds will become a 100-person extreme sports survival game. We look forward to your forward and backflips.
Balance-wise, the update reduces the Vector and Winchester's power, while slightly increasing the AKM's bullet damage. As for stock attachments, a cheek pad can now be added to the SKS sniper rifle, a tactical stock can now be implemented to the M416 Vector, and modified recoils can now be applied to the AKM, SCAR, M16 and HK416. A new scope rendering method has also been introduced, allowing for greater aiming precision and showcased here.
Again, a number UI and rendering issues, as well as a host of bug fixes have been ironed out in PUBG's second Early Access update. Speaking directly to lag issues and the quality of its servers, however, the game's creators note the following:
"I have seen a lot of speculation about the cause of the lag some of you experience. One of the more popular theories is that we run our games on potato quality servers. I would like to put this theory to bed by telling you our servers run on the highest possible spec machines that AWS [Amazon Web Services] offer.
"We are currently in the middle of profiling the servers to attempt to track down the cause of the lag, but as I have said before, this will take us time to complete, so I ask for your patience while we work to improve server performance for all players.
"While [the] next monthly update will be focused on improving server performance, the optimisation process won't stop there, and we will continue to improve performance of the servers all the way through Early Access."
Playerunknown Battlegrounds' second update goes live on Thursday, May 25.
If you've got the game already, but haven't checked out any of the DLC, you can get 50 percent off Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine too. Hearts of stone is down to £4 / $5, and you're tasked with defeating a ruthless bandit captain, Olgierd von Everec. The final Witcher 3 expansion, Blood and Wine, is £8 / $10, and it adds an extra 30 hours of gameplay to an already massive game.
You'll also find The Witcher and The Witcher 2 in the sale, along with all kinds of versions of Pillars of Eternity and its expansions. Tyranny, the evil campaign follow up to Pillars of Eternity, is also cheaper than normal. Both Legend of Grimrock games, and both System Shock and System Shock 2 can also be grabbed for very cheap.
Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read ouraffiliate policyfor more info.
When Tyler checked into Rocket League last week after some time away, he was taken aback by how good some of its players have become. At almost two years old, change is inevitable for Psyonix's ball-cage-car 'em up—a fact which will soon extend to the retirement of Crates.
If you've been hanging around the Rocket League community of late, you've probably noticed a degree of speculation around this but it's now official: Psyonix will retire "some" of the game's Crates "in the near future."
Speaking in this community post, the developer's Devin Connors suggests the next major update will prevent all four Champion Crates from being obtainable following Online Matches. In turn, this means that the removal of older Crates should increase the likelihood of landing news ones—however Connors also stresses the retirement will only affect drops and not whatever players may have (and wish to trade) in their current inventories.
"After retiring the Champion Series, we will continue to retire other Crates on a schedule of roughly six months after their initial release," says Connors. "But don’t worry, items found inside retired Crates could still come back at a later date. Some items are already available in other Crates, like those found in the Player’s Choice Crate we released in February."
Connors adds that an announcement will be made ahead of each Crate's retirement, and that Psyonix will have more to share regarding the next big update at the RLCS Season Three World Championship.
Ellie, my researcher, has hit a wall. Literally, I mean. Completely stressed out, she's left her work station and is running around the colony, punching random blocks with her fists, slamming her head against them in frustration, and pausing periodically to try to compose herself (and failing) before continuing her rampage. As she dashes around in a blind rage she even delivers a few vicious blows to the colony's manual power generator (it's like a huge hamster wheel) before another, more level-headed colonist hurriedly steps in to make repairs. Eventually Ellie runs over to the massage table, where I'm happy to see that rather than punching it to pieces, she climbs aboard for a stress-relieving mechanical back-rub. The Ellie problem has been temporarily resolved but a new issue crops up: Otto, another colonist, has gone from stress burping to stress vomiting. That's probably not a good sign.
I'm in my third hour of play, and things have begun to fall apart after mostly smooth sailing during hours one and two. Oxygen Not Included, now in Early Access, is a management simulation from Klei Entertainment (developer of Don't Starve) in which you direct a handful of brave clones to build an underground base in an asteroid. You need to manage your colonists as they dig out caverns, gather resources, build machinery, and turn a harsh environment into a livable underground home. As you may have gathered from the title, not only do the colonists need food, warmth, and comfort, but also enough clean air to breathe. And clearly, you need to keep on eye on their stress levels—which can rise due foul odors, full bladders, lack of sleep, and other factors—because like Ellie they can to go a little nuts, or in Otto's case, simply start barfing on everything.
PSA: This one isn't a gif. It won't move.
I've decided not to consult any wikis during my first session: I've grown a bit weary of the endless alt-tabbing and hours of reading that typically accompany these Early Access survival games. Oxygen Not Included, thankfully, does a good job of explaining most of its basic features in menus, mouse-over tips, and unobtrusive tutorial notifications, and the information you need to get started is easy to come by right there in the game.
I'm also learning a lot through simple observation. I can see that gases like oxygen and hydrogen float upwards, while others, such as carbon dioxide, settle downwards. As these gases concentrate, float, and swirl, you can easily tell what is breathable and what is dangerous without the colored mists completely obscuring everything else, and there are helpful overlays you can toggle to get an idea of trouble spots. There are certainly challenges in solving the issues of toxic gases mingling with breathable oxygen, but at least it's easy to see those issues in the first place. Water, meanwhile, flows and pools thanks to gravity, but not entirely smoothly: due to surface tension it may cling to rocks or narrow tunnels. Water, naturally, is prone to pollution as well, and can be a hazard like tainted air is. I learned this the hard way when one of my clones couldn't make it to the bathroom in time, and spread piss all over the research area. Way to go, Leon.
There are various mechanical items you can unlock through research, like liquid and gas pumps and pipes to direct helpful elements like water and O2 where they need to be, and pump away chlorine gas and other pollutants. Electricity for these machines begins with a manually operated generator (the human hamster wheel), with batteries to store surplus power power and wires you can string around the base to link the machinery. Once you've begun to research new technology you can also build generators powered by coal, natural gas, and hydrogen. Building something is as simple as selecting what you want and plopping it somewhere, while icons and text clearly identify any missing requirements.
It's tricky, though, dealing with those gases. After building my hydrogen generator in a pocket of gas in a nearby cavern, I noticed a colonist was constantly running over to repair it. My pump was also pulling in chlorine, which was plentiful in the same cave and was damaging the generator. As more hydrogen got used for the generator, chlorine filled the space to take its place, causing my generator to break down even more often. I added a filter that would separate the two gases (though I'm not entirely sure I hooked it up properly) and walled most off the chlorine with solid tile.
Then the small space ran out of hydrogen altogether and became a vacuum, shutting the generator down again. I had a colonist destroy an airlock so the pump could use the remaining amount of hydrogen that was present in the generator room, which kept the genny running a bit longer until that space was empty, too (though there was some leftover chlorine swirling around, causing more damage). Then it shut down for good. Time to look elsewhere for my hydrogen.
I had a similar problem with water, which can be used for farming and plumbing. The pump I'd submerged in one cave eventually pumped all the water out, so I dug a tunnel and laid down some pipe in another water-filled cavern, hoping to send the water into the now-empty one. A portion of my tunnel collapsed, however, sending the water flooding into my base before I'd finished connecting my pipe. Some of the water made it to the empty cave, but it also covered the floors in several areas, submerged some other machinery (which stopped working) and of course gave my colonists 'soggy feet' which tends to make them cold and unhappy.
It was a bit of a mess. In fact my colony in general is a mess, not just due to my plumbing and piping miscues but from poor planning. I hadn't provided enough venting in certain areas for the oxygen to flow properly, and I probably should have placed the lavatories (which can get plenty toxic themselves) a bit further away from the colonists' beds. Stress levels continued to rise among my little colonists as things slowly but steadily grew worse.
I'm up to seven or eight colonists (you receive new ones, called Duplicants because they're constructed by a giant 3D printer, every few days) before I decide that rather than trying to salvage my stinky, soggy base, that I should just try to start over from scratch. Time to kill everybody!
In this regard, I have to say, Duplicants are surprisingly durable. They can live a long, long time in deadly environments and keep on working even when things are really not going their way. While Ellie is losing her mind, her health remains high, as does that of all my other little workers. I have to make a concerted effort to kill them in the end (well, I don't have to, I want to, since I'm starting over anyway).
I disable all the machinery, toilets, generators, and food production and I set the colony to red alert, meaning colonists will prioritize work above all other needs, even sleep. Finally, they begin to drop. Otto stress-burps a final time before keeling over, Ellie stops rampaging and croaks, and a Duplicant called Mi-Ma pauses in her pointless task, obtains a momentary expression of bliss, then expires.
Oxygen Not Included is in Early Access, but it's already a heck of a lot of fun (and for the record, my second colony is going much better than my first). Thanks to the colonists' hearty and durable nature, the early game feels forgiving enough to let you take your time, work on your colony at a leisurely pace, and not worry about a few accidents or problems completely wiping out all of your citizens in one fell swoop.
There's a lot of complexity and the opportunity to build deep and complicated mechanical systems if that's your thing, but Klei's done a great job making the game easy to get into and grasp the basics, unlike many other survival management games. Maybe Ellie lost her mind from stress, but I haven't yet.
