Once Human is surprising. It’s a free-to-play open-world survival crafting game, a word salad of flavor-of-the-month genres if ever there was one, and it takes those well-worn ideas and simplifies them into relatively basic forms. And yet, I’m not ready to put it down even after dozens of hours. It’s so fun, and so weird, that I can’t help but think about my next supply run or alien monster fight, or crafting the tasteful ensuite that would really bring my little homestead together.
There’s no shortage of post-apocalyptic survival games out there, whether you’re talking about Fallout 76, Rust, 7 Days to Die, or many, many other options. But Once Human makes its take on that setup feel unique and interesting by wrapping the end of the world around an alien infestation rather than your classic zombies or nuclear war scenarios. It’s a fun approach that, in hindsight, seems underused in the genre, and Once Human puts it to use in some really clever ways.
This alien organism has the ability to turn basically anything into a grotesque monster, living or otherwise. Sure, that shuffling and snarling person may seem like a zombie, but then it turns around and reveals it has a blinding stage light for a head. I’ve fought lightbulbs that have turned into giant spiders, evil trees, and even a bus that sprouted a really unfortunate number of giant legs and trotted up and down the road like the biggest, yellowest, and strangest centipede that has ever existed. I did not see those enemies coming, and that has kept Once Human full of surprises.
Not all of the strange creatures are hostile. Deviations are creatures you can capture and then use either in battle or to help you out around your base. They are essentially the Pokemon of the alien apocalypse. You can carry one into combat in your backpack, like my pal Festering Gel, which can reshape itself into makeshift cover when thrown. Others, like The Digby Boy, are best put to use at home helping with chores like collecting ore. They are endearing, useful, and utterly bizarre, perfectly suited for this world.
The creatures are the best looking things in Once Human.
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Your weaponry, on the other hand, is fairly basic – the arsenal consists of simple melee weapons like blades and bats, as well as your general pistol, rifle, and shotgun small-arms options. There is at least an interesting ownership system at work when it comes to your weapons and armor, as you can repair or upgrade things you craft, but not the often better gear you’ll find out in the field. You can, however, use them until they wear out, then dismantle them for the blueprints, which cleverly encourages you to try things out before investing the time and resources needed to craft your own.
The weapons may be conventional, but the enemies you defeat with them most definitely are not. You’ll come up against everything from a monster with a traffic cone for a head to a massive shadow-beast boss that would look at home in God of War. Sure, most of the fights are resolved by simply flailing your melee weapon or running around in circles and shooting as you drain health bars, but the boss fights do a nice job of mixing in unique mechanics, like forcing you to kill monster spawners to make the boss vulnerable.
The creatures are the best looking things in Once Human, with organic and inorganic meeting in a strange, body horror aesthetic. That said, the rest of the world is pretty bland. Colors and lighting are especially unappealing, and the same trees repeat a noticeable amount of the times throughout any forest. Urban areas are largely covered in drab concrete that shows signs of decay, but not to the degree that stands out in something like the Last of Us series, which seems like a missed opportunity to lean even further into the alien infestation look.
The biggest monsters are reserved for instanced dungeons, similar to classic World of Warcraft design. These fights are geared towards groups of up to four players, and Once Human makes forming pick-up parties easy. A click of a button brings up a server-wide team finder where you can browse what sort of groups other people are looking for, or start your own. Just pick what activity you are doing and interested parties will apply to join you, and you can give them the thumbs up or down at your leisure. Even as a relatively shy gamer when it comes to queueing up with randoms (I typically bring my own group of friends), I’ve had a lot of success getting groups together, and the fact that no words or other back-and-forth is necessary makes it painless even for online introverts like myself. I just wish it were possible to bring your character along when you switch servers – right now, if you aren’t on the same server as a friend, someone will need to start from scratch in order for you to play together, which is an unfortunate misstep.
The map is huge, feeling big but not empty.
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Outside of combat, there’s a simple linear main quest and a smattering of optional side missions. Not a whole lot is done with the main quest, as it seems to mostly serve as an excuse to push you toward new areas rather than being an actual story. The missions themselves are largely the same loop of visiting an area, activating a bunch of Rift Anchors, and then fighting the region's boss, which did get pretty tiresome by the end. I do, however, appreciate the times Once Human leans into the strangeness of its world, like when I was sent to hunt a monster that kept turning pregnant people into trees (seriously).
The map is huge, with regions roughly separated by enemy level and topography. More importantly, it feels big but not empty. Every neighborhood or research lab is dense with monstrosities to fight and loot to, well, loot, and every open space is a potential homestead to build upon. It can take a very long time to cross from one part of the world to the other by foot, which is why I’m glad an early quest gave me a motorcycle that I can summon anytime, and it’s fun to zoom around on. There are also Transportation Towers to unlock, which act as fast travel points, and even a glider, which all help make the distances much more manageable.
The level curve is in need of some work, however. It’s easy to keep up in the early and mid game, but by the time you reach the final areas, enemies are at such a high level that you are stuck with the choice of being easily one shot or grinding for hours to work your way to parity. There’s nothing wrong with getting your butt kicked and then working to beef up your character to return the favor down the line, but just how suddenly that challenge spikes up makes the climb more daunting than aspirational.
The survival-crafting aspects that make up that climb benefit from being very simple and straightforward. You have very few things you can craft at the start, but as you accumulate XP and level up you get Memetic Cyphers, which let you unlock nodes on four upgrade trees. As long as you have Memetic Cyphers and enough materials you can quickly get to the point where you’re able to make quality food and equipment. It’s a less-is-more approach that makes it easy to get back to the action, which I appreciate.
Gathering materials is still done via the tried and true “run around and punch trees” method, but at least early on supplies are abundant enough that heading out for some mining doesn’t feel laborious. Resources seem to grow back quickly, and as you level up you gain access to things like automated mining or rainfall catchers that move you from a hunter-gatherer into your own industrial revolution, which is very rewarding.
Some of my hardest fights have just been trying to get my roof lined up correctly.
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Building a home follows the same curve as you unlock Memetic upgrades to enable construction with more advanced materials. It’s generally pretty easy to find what parts you need from the wall laid out menu. I’m no craftsman, but even I was able to build a lovely split level home on a riverbed easily enough. The hardest part is getting the individual pieces to face the direction you want, and some of my hardest fights have just been trying to get the sections of my roof lined up correctly. It’s great that you can see other player’s houses for inspiration, and I appreciate that you can save a blueprint of your own, which lets you pack up and move to a new area, then recreate it almost instantaneously.
As Once Human is ultimately a live service game, there is a road map for more content ahead. This includes things like the next steps in the story, technical additions like controller support, and special events. Most importantly, each season, which last six weeks, ends with a wipe of the servers, similar to what happens in Escape from Tarkov. That sounds scary, but the blueprints you collect remain, including the one for your house, as does quest progress. There’s no way to know just yet if that’s a fun clean slate or a terrible nuisance, but thinking about how I’ll approach that has me intrigued, and fairly optimistic.
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As you reach the latter half of the story you unlock Eternaland, which is essentially an alternate build-only mode on a private server. It has a pair of unique currencies called Astral Sand and Astrealite that can be used to buy everything from seeds to fishing rods to scenic elements like stones and trees. Importantly, Eternaland is free of the seasonal wipes, which is an appealing option if you want to build your dream home and show it off to friends without worry.
There are some limited PVP offerings, too, but you need to opt into a PvP server when you create a character to be able to see them. You won’t find anything like an Arena or a Team Deathmatch mode. Instead, there are events focused entirely around PvP, most notably the Echo Stones that fall from the sky. Once a player picks one up, their goal is to return it to their base and defend it from monsters and other players while it is purified in a Stardust Resonant filter. It’s purely optional, which is a good choice since the rewards are so minor and the options so basic.
