Nova Antarctica Preview (PC)

Survival games are generally not really my bag; I like the idea of them, but all too often I find myself losing interest very quickly as I die repeatedly or fail to make progress. I do like to try them though to see if one sticks, and when I was offered a chance to check out Nova Antarctica for preview, I figured why not? Visually it appeals to me more than the usual ‘realistic’ fare, and as a solo adventure in the frozen land of the Antarctic, appeals to my preference for the colder weather too. 

Unfortunately, I don’t think Nova Antarctica is for me either. It all feels too obtuse, too plodding, and if not unfair, then overburdensome with things to learn and craft, to the point that after dying and restarting a few times, I must tap out and move on.

That’s not to say there’s no promise here. I think people who like the crafty/survivally genre might dig it, and I will say that when I was in the midst of another go I did start to see the appeal. But then, a snow storm came in and killed me yet again, and the thought of slowly building up my resources yet again was too much.

We start as our adventurer lands on the continent with the sole goal of reaching the South Pole. The game is split into levels, but each one is a massive area to explore, loot, and scavenge. Collecting wood, metals, and all sorts of other materials lets us craft blueprints, and scanning items lets us learn new blueprints. We can’t carry a tremendous amount, and in the opening section of the game I was able to play I hit the limit pretty quickly. 

There is a lot to learn off the bat, not  just what to craft and how, but dealing with dangers like changing weather, radiation, energy, stamina, and more. While we get tooltips pop up to start with, soon we’re left on our own and it’s tricky to manage all of the systems in place. Stamina is taken by expected actions like running, jumping and using tools, but we also have a suit energy meter to contend with. This is constantly dropping, but does so faster in extreme weather or radiation. Crafting top up kits is essential, but these are expensive in terms of resources. 

Nova Antarctica tells us from the off that our only goal is to get to the South Pole, but as we get nearer supplies get scarcer, so early on it’s all but essential to explore. This is naturally risky as the longer we’re in one area, the longer we’re risking losing all of our progress to the elements, but also the greater the rewards for a successful haul. 

I did find it somewhat enjoyable on one run as I realised the scope of an area, finding lots of extra resources and building up a good stash. However, an incoming storm and me being far too far away from the level exit point meant I ended up using most of what I’d scavenged getting back to safety. 

I think this would be fine if Nova Antarctica felt enjoyable to control and explore, but everything is so plodding that restarting is even less appealing. Our character moves slowly even when sprinting, and picking up items is laborious as it takes a second or so after picking one up before we can grab the next. When there’s a dozen logs to grab in one area, it can feel far too slow to pick them all up. Everything requires a button hold too, from crafting to acknowledging tooltips, and again, it just adds up to a feeling of slowness that really puts me off. 

The interface is also a bit confusing at first, and not all that intuitive even when I got more of a hang of it. Crafting can be done in the menus, though it doesn’t tell us what items do. Some are obvious, others less so. There is a little video that plays in the crafting menu screen, but I found this to be less illuminating than I’m sure it was intended to be without some description text. 

Crafting can also be done in the radial menu, but after each one the menu closes so we have to reopen it constantly. I just didn’t enjoy the way it felt to interact with Nova Antarctica on the whole, and though this is only a preview of the game, with the launch so close I don’t imagine things like the above will change much between now and then.

After a few runs, I’m afraid I had to call it quits on Nova Antarctica. I do like the style of the game, and there are moments where I was enjoying the loop of scavenging and survival. But every time I thought I’d turned a corner, something else popped up to knock me back down and I just didn’t feel energised or interested in retrying yet again. It’s too slow and obtuse at points, and the interface too fiddly to make wanting to survive to see what’s next worthwhile.

This game was previewed on PC (via Steam). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.