The survival game Sengoku Dynasty has left Early Access on Steam. MeinMMO author Cedric Holmeier played the first hours of the full version and overcame every hurdle.
Sengoku Dynasty is the successor to Medieval Dynasty. As a mix of survival game, city-building simulation, and construction game, it combines genres that are rarely combined.
Before it becomes more about management later on, the start of the game focuses almost exclusively on survival. A discipline that is tougher than expected.
Here you can see the trailer for the release version of Sengoku Dynasty:
“It can’t be that hard”
Sengoku Dynasty begins with a simply designed character editor, which quickly creates a character but does not allow too much creative freedom. Nevertheless, what’s more important are the contents of the game.
Right at the beginning, the game throws the freshly created character onto the beach of Japan and explains the basics. On the way to find our companion, we roughly learn the controls.
“It can’t be that hard,” thought our author when Sengoku Dynasty essentially started with the explanation akin to Romulus and Remus. Thus, all pop-ups were deftly ignored and clicked away from then on.
In the task of crafting the first tools, this was still somewhat successful. After pressing every key on the keyboard and mouse, the menu for crafting with bare hands opened up.
The first quests were quickly checked off, and it was time to build the first village.
In Japan, there are real bears
When choosing the settlement location, one should ensure that the most important conditions are met. Water, resources, and preferably some wildlife for food. Such wildlife caught the attention of MeinMMO author Cedric Holmeier right after placing his village.
Next to his settlement is an area full of bears, and one hardly stands a chance against them, especially at the beginning of the game. Since moving doesn’t seem to be an easy option, confrontation with the bears remains the only alternative. However, they win – time and time again.
“The fight is lost – the battle is not over” was likely one of the thoughts in the author’s mind, and so the bears were carefully circumnavigated daily. The problem arose when the bears ventured into the village.
The quests in Sengoku Dynasty always indicate what to do next, and before you know it, you’ve conjured up a small village. However, this only works if you find the right materials.
While stone, wood, and sticks wait for the player in their presumed locations, grass for the beds behaves differently. The ground is full of grass, but you can’t just pick it up.
Small bushes yield sticks, and so players often walk over the ground covered in grass texture for minutes before they come across bushes that are significantly smaller but finally provide the valuable resource.
“That must have been explained,” thought the author of these lines and returned to the village, past the bears.
Unhappy residents go unnoticed
After the essential buildings in the village were constructed and the first three residents moved in, the second aspect of the game begins – managing the village.
Every villager needs a place to sleep and can be assigned to a workplace where they perform their tasks. So far, so simple – until one of the residents suddenly leaves the village.
After some sleuthing, it became apparent: Not only do you need food, but the villagers do too.
Five days with a hole in the stomach were probably enough for discontent to grow large enough to leave the village. Fortunately, the problem could be quickly solved by transferring the gathered food from the inventory to the community chest.
At least the residents don’t need to drink, or else the village would likely have been completely empty by the fifth day.
According to achievements on Steam, besides our author, only 0.2% of players have managed to neglect their residents so badly that they left the village – hats off!
Conclusion: Is Sengoku Dynasty fun?
In short: Yes, Sengoku Dynasty is fun, even in the first hours. The title offers, especially since the 1.0 update, many contents that ensure hours of entertainment. The new and interesting endgame content attracts players on their journey through the game, filled with funny, beautiful, and nice moments – even if you build your village next to 10 bears.
It certainly would have been better to read the countless text boxes with explanations to avoid some of the beginner mistakes. Nevertheless, the game is intuitive enough in most aspects that one figures it out if one just tries enough.
Sengoku Dynasty also offers a lot of content in the hours after the first playtime that can keep players occupied for hours. For instance, you can found your own dynasty with your friends: New survival game on Steam, set in feudal Japan, offers coop for 4 players, allows you to create your own dynasty
