LAST OASIS

LastOasis styles itself as the first “nomadic survival MMO”, and it took me a while to grasp what that meant. As MMOs go, it initially appears to follow the trends; you spawn into the desert, near-naked and unarmed, tasked with slaying a handful of AI-controlled mobs to gain experience points and crafting materials. The combat is real time, with a three-stance melee system, so there’s no sitting around tapping ability hotkeys, hoping the numbers popping out of the enemy are bigger than the numbers popping out of you. Tools spice things up, like a grappling hook.

The point where LastOasis started to set itself apart from the crowd came once I crafted my first Walker; a steampunk contraption of wood and iron, striding across the desert on six spindly legs. Walkers are key to the experience; the in-game lore states that after an apocalyptic event stopped the planet from spinning on its axis, only a narrow, shifting strip of land remains habitable as the Earth orbits the Sun. There’s a nice bit of ludonarrative connection here, as the game world moves forward slowly but constantly, meaning that you can never stay in one place for too long.

Larger, multiplayer Walkers with huge sails and weapon emplacements are also vital for the most fun thing in

LastOasis: monster hunting. Giant beasts lurk beneath the dunes, from hulking crustaceans to a sandworm that would make Frank Herbert proud. An early scuffle with the latter saw our Walker badly damaged and two of my allies dead; we beat a hasty retreat to a nearby jungle, only to be promptly picked off by vulturing players with deadly ranged weapons. This is a hostile, cutthroat world. I’m in love.

$30, www.donkey.team