Bossa Studios, the creators of the failed MMO Worlds Adrift, are back with a new survival MMO. Project Meru is currently in the concept phase, and the developer wants to know from you: Do you want this? MeinMMO presents the survival game to you.
What is Project Meru? The developers describe Project Meru as a cooperative, action-oriented survival-lite experience. It is not a hardcore survival game but rather a more laid-back representative of the genre. It could possibly belong to the survival games that are better suited for beginners in the genre.
This is what the game is about: You take on the role of the last survivors of humanity. Your ancestors were attacked by mysterious giants with god-like powers who nearly wiped out humanity. Now it is up to you and your teammates to rebuild the world.
Thanks to an ancient artifact, you can support yourselves by building practical machines that can handle various tasks.
The world will offer various biomes and change depending on your actions. The world is named “Lands below,” which translates roughly to “Lands below” in German.
You can watch the trailer here:
Project Meru will deliver “urgently needed improvements to the survival formula”
How is the game supposed to work? According to the official website of Project Meru, absolute lovers of the survival genre are involved. However, there is apparently a lot of room for improvement in the usual formula of these games.
Project Meru will maintain the principle of survival games but streamline certain mechanics to make them more pleasant. Resource management and building are intended to be simplified.
Specifically, the “automation of tasks” and “centralization of resource management” are mentioned. Apparently, robot helpers that you can build will play a role in this. Crafting is also supposed to be made interesting.
In general, the crafting system is supposed to be properly explained. According to the creators, this is a major shortcoming in other representatives of the genre.
How is the gameplay supposed to be? Some facts regarding the basic concept of the game are already mentioned:
- Up to 10 players per “world”
- There is an extensive crafting system
- You build machines and bases using resources
- Each machine can act as a means of transportation
- You fight alongside other players against hostile creatures
- Your goal is to reclaim the ecosystem that was “torn apart” by the giants
You can take a look at some concept art here:
Project Meru is still a concept and asks if you are interested
What exactly does this mean? On their website, Bossa Studios has started a survey at the end of the description for Project Meru: “Would you like us to turn this into a proper game?” Players can respond with yes or no. Here is the link to the survey: projectmeru.bossapresents.com
Whether the actual development has already begun is hard to say. It will likely depend on player feedback whether and how Project Meru will be realized.
What do players say about it? There are not many comments yet. The first commentators seem to be positive about the concept. However, there are also a few skeptical voices related to an earlier game from the studio.
Some of you may remember the name Bossa Studios, at least if the sandbox MMO Worlds Adrift is still familiar to you. In July 2019, the game had to close its doors due to low player numbers and high costs.
In Worlds Adrift, there was no EXP and no levels; the focus was on exploring the game world. Your character improved through gathered knowledge and powerful artifacts that could be found.
However, among active players, Worlds Adrift was very popular, with many calling it the “perfect sandbox MMO.” Consequently, the reactions at that time were shocked. There is hope that this time it will go better.
It remains to be seen how feedback to Project Meru turns out and whether the concept will ever be realized.
