How To Survive 2

Do you know those times when you've just finished with a game and you really don't know what to play, nothing really stands out, there's a few games you'd like to try but they're way too expensive, there's a few you have halfway but don't feel like going back to, and you just start browsing your vast, VAST library of Steam trash for something that you might have left relatively untouched for one reason or the other in a desperate attempt to avoid throwing more money into the always hungry maw of procrastination? Even if you somehow never have despite stumbling into the steam page of a VERY cheap 2016 game, I'm pretty sure you could probably relate to it.
I bought this game while it was still in Early Access, probably on the suggestion of a group of people I had played the first HTS game with. Our playthrough obviously didn't make it very far, and so this game sat, untouched and undisturbed on my game collection, until at the start of this very unproductive weekend, and what can I say, I guess it's just what I was in the mood for, even though looking back on it, I don't think it's a very good game.
HTS2 is a very straightforward third person action-survival game split between a big hub map where the player can collect resources, build a base and craft gear and items, and where they will speak with quest-givers who will send them on self-contained, predefined missions. Complete these missions, and you will earn materials to upgrade your base and craft new items with, and experience points that can be put towards an (extremely convoluted) level-up system, as well as advancing their respective questlines. Missions can be repeated as many times as desired, and the only penalty for dying, as far as I'm aware, is loss of experience points and some minutes of player time. I'm assuming there's some kind of failure state at some point, but I have personally not experienced it, because overall, the game is pretty easy.
To be honest, HTS2's difficulty and progression are weird. First off, the way mission difficulty is handled is beautifully simple to the point of I'm conflicted on whether to call it genius or lazy. Missions have a minimum required level, but when accepting them, they will scale to the player's level for purposes of enemy type and level. The player can choose to further modify the mission's level, by simply having the coice to raise or lower the mission's level by 5, meaning that if a mission is level 10 but I'm level 20, I will be able to change it to be between level 15 and 25. Rewards are the same, loot is the same (not sure about enemy drops), but the total exp points received for that mission will have a multiplier based off the difference between the required level and the level at which it is played. In my previous example, that would mean a multiplier of between 5x and 15x from the base exp reward.
Experience points are spent through a baroque triple-layered system: First, you need to spend points on your camp level. This basically governs your progress through the game, which buildings you get access to, the cap of your individual building levels, and your character's level. Then, you will spend exp points into your character level, which governs enemy level, and the skill levels you get access you, *AND THEN* you'll spend exp points into upgrading skills like more damage, more sprint speed, etc. Buildings are upgraded by materials, which gives access to new gear and items. There are a few melee weapons which I have barely used, and 6 main categories of ranged weapons: pistols, revolvers, rifles, smgs, bows and crossbows for which you'll get access to direct upgrades to craft, as well as accessories that can be installed through a customization menu. Armors seem more like sidegrades, less like options and more "this is what you'll wear for the next 10 levels". Effectiveness is hard to gauge from the tons of stats provided, and some upgrades sometimes aren't obvious looking at the numbers, while others carry enormous tradeoffs that are not worth it. Overall the game feels like it was built with a much bigger idea in mind and that it eventually had to be cut down, but from what there is, I would say it tries very commendably to make all gear viable and give each tool its purpose, although there is little to no reason to just stick with bows through the entirety of the game.
Despite the absolute showers of exp you can receive, porogression through the game is mainly dragged down by resources. I imagine this game was built with multiplayer in the forefront, with several players contributing to its construction, and the materials that your base will require to stay up to date will vastly oustrip what you will receive through missions. This means that at some point you will invariably need to repeat some, and while this is pretty painless, it's not great. The game will include a glossary of items that you can access you see the three missions you've received the most of in as a quick guide to what to run if you want this, which is a very nice touch, though.
The game, while not looking amazing, holds up in a very xbox 360 arcade kind of way. The textures look mostly drab and ugly, but the animations are lovely, the models are crisp, the camera doesn't get in the way, and when it's not at night and/or raining (which is a depressingly large chunk of the time I spent playing), the game looks very decent. It also controls great, too, and in gamepad the scheme is very well though out and implemented. Menu navigation is a pain in the ass, but in general menus in this game are the counterpoint to the bright spots in other areas of the game. They are boring, straighfrorward, cluttery and clunky. Functional, but barely a passing grade.
All of this out of the way through, the game provides a steady stream of missions that just basically serve as an excuse to go from A to B, kill all zombies in between and loot all the lootables you can find. Come back to camp, drop everything off, craft a little, go see what's the next mission, and what can I say, it works mesmerizingly well and will put you in that sort of trance like state only a steady stream of fast food-like sludge pumped directly into your brain can do. It's not great, it's not amazing, but it works and it's just the right amount of interesting and satisfying to keep you pushing for the next mission, and the next level. The enemy variety, although not crazy, keeps throwing you new enemies, and while the random spawning will sometimes upset the flow of a level as they were originally designed (sometimes leaving entire swathes of level basically empty and useless), missions are varied in terms of objectives and overall design, although some of them will become repetitive pretty soon due to the similar layouts, but they are quick and brisk and much like the rest of the product it's just competent enough to keep your attention.
There is a surprisingly large amount of stuff I'd like to talk about regarding this game when considering how mediocre it is considered as a whole. It's got a lot of quirks and design decisions that hint a lot of care went into its design, and it's a game that has very very solid fundamentals and that went for far higher than it should have cared for. You'll see a lot of reviews listing negatives and I'll probably agree with every single one of them. But at the end of the day I'd be lying if I didn't say I haven't enjoyed the time I've spent with it and that, if you get it at a good price, this is a heaping greasy awful delicious ladleful of gaming comfort food.
7/10.

Steam User 4

Reviewed last year

Do you know those times when you've just finished with a game and you really don't know what to play, nothing really stands out, there's a few games you'd like to try but they're way too expensive, there's a few you have halfway but don't feel like going back to, and you just start browsing your vast, VAST library of Steam trash for something that you might have left relatively untouched for one reason or the other in a desperate attempt to avoid throwing more money into the always hungry maw of procrastination? Even if you somehow never have despite stumbling into the steam page of a VERY cheap 2016 game, I'm pretty sure you could probably relate to it.
I bought this game while it was still in Early Access, probably on the suggestion of a group of people I had played the first HTS game with. Our playthrough obviously didn't make it very far, and so this game sat, untouched and undisturbed on my game collection, until at the start of this very unproductive weekend, and what can I say, I guess it's just what I was in the mood for, even though looking back on it, I don't think it's a very good game.
HTS2 is a very straightforward third person action-survival game split between a big hub map where the player can collect resources, build a base and craft gear and items, and where they will speak with quest-givers who will send them on self-contained, predefined missions. Complete these missions, and you will earn materials to upgrade your base and craft new items with, and experience points that can be put towards an (extremely convoluted) level-up system, as well as advancing their respective questlines. Missions can be repeated as many times as desired, and the only penalty for dying, as far as I'm aware, is loss of experience points and some minutes of player time. I'm assuming there's some kind of failure state at some point, but I have personally not experienced it, because overall, the game is pretty easy.
To be honest, HTS2's difficulty and progression are weird. First off, the way mission difficulty is handled is beautifully simple to the point of I'm conflicted on whether to call it genius or lazy. Missions have a minimum required level, but when accepting them, they will scale to the player's level for purposes of enemy type and level. The player can choose to further modify the mission's level, by simply having the coice to raise or lower the mission's level by 5, meaning that if a mission is level 10 but I'm level 20, I will be able to change it to be between level 15 and 25. Rewards are the same, loot is the same (not sure about enemy drops), but the total exp points received for that mission will have a multiplier based off the difference between the required level and the level at which it is played. In my previous example, that would mean a multiplier of between 5x and 15x from the base exp reward.
Experience points are spent through a baroque triple-layered system: First, you need to spend points on your camp level. This basically governs your progress through the game, which buildings you get access to, the cap of your individual building levels, and your character's level. Then, you will spend exp points into your character level, which governs enemy level, and the skill levels you get access you, *AND THEN* you'll spend exp points into upgrading skills like more damage, more sprint speed, etc. Buildings are upgraded by materials, which gives access to new gear and items. There are a few melee weapons which I have barely used, and 6 main categories of ranged weapons: pistols, revolvers, rifles, smgs, bows and crossbows for which you'll get access to direct upgrades to craft, as well as accessories that can be installed through a customization menu. Armors seem more like sidegrades, less like options and more "this is what you'll wear for the next 10 levels". Effectiveness is hard to gauge from the tons of stats provided, and some upgrades sometimes aren't obvious looking at the numbers, while others carry enormous tradeoffs that are not worth it. Overall the game feels like it was built with a much bigger idea in mind and that it eventually had to be cut down, but from what there is, I would say it tries very commendably to make all gear viable and give each tool its purpose, although there is little to no reason to just stick with bows through the entirety of the game.
Despite the absolute showers of exp you can receive, porogression through the game is mainly dragged down by resources. I imagine this game was built with multiplayer in the forefront, with several players contributing to its construction, and the materials that your base will require to stay up to date will vastly oustrip what you will receive through missions. This means that at some point you will invariably need to repeat some, and while this is pretty painless, it's not great. The game will include a glossary of items that you can access you see the three missions you've received the most of in as a quick guide to what to run if you want this, which is a very nice touch, though.
The game, while not looking amazing, holds up in a very xbox 360 arcade kind of way. The textures look mostly drab and ugly, but the animations are lovely, the models are crisp, the camera doesn't get in the way, and when it's not at night and/or raining (which is a depressingly large chunk of the time I spent playing), the game looks very decent. It also controls great, too, and in gamepad the scheme is very well though out and implemented. Menu navigation is a pain in the ass, but in general menus in this game are the counterpoint to the bright spots in other areas of the game. They are boring, straighfrorward, cluttery and clunky. Functional, but barely a passing grade.
All of this out of the way through, the game provides a steady stream of missions that just basically serve as an excuse to go from A to B, kill all zombies in between and loot all the lootables you can find. Come back to camp, drop everything off, craft a little, go see what's the next mission, and what can I say, it works mesmerizingly well and will put you in that sort of trance like state only a steady stream of fast food-like sludge pumped directly into your brain can do. It's not great, it's not amazing, but it works and it's just the right amount of interesting and satisfying to keep you pushing for the next mission, and the next level. The enemy variety, although not crazy, keeps throwing you new enemies, and while the random spawning will sometimes upset the flow of a level as they were originally designed (sometimes leaving entire swathes of level basically empty and useless), missions are varied in terms of objectives and overall design, although some of them will become repetitive pretty soon due to the similar layouts, but they are quick and brisk and much like the rest of the product it's just competent enough to keep your attention.
There is a surprisingly large amount of stuff I'd like to talk about regarding this game when considering how mediocre it is considered as a whole. It's got a lot of quirks and design decisions that hint a lot of care went into its design, and it's a game that has very very solid fundamentals and that went for far higher than it should have cared for. You'll see a lot of reviews listing negatives and I'll probably agree with every single one of them. But at the end of the day I'd be lying if I didn't say I haven't enjoyed the time I've spent with it and that, if you get it at a good price, this is a heaping greasy awful delicious ladleful of gaming comfort food.
7/10.
Steam User 10

Reviewed last year

Diablo + The Forest + Dead Rising = The masterpiece that is How To Survive 2
Steam User 3

Reviewed last year

WE KNOW ALREADY!
Steam User 4

Reviewed last year

great zombie survival game
Steam User 2

Reviewed last year

Great as a local stand alone game as well as team play online. Provides for challenges that are achievable and player/weapon upgrade options as part of the challenge goals. Also has local camp area 'surface play' which allows gathering of resources and zombie hunting at a casual pace as an option to the challenge missions set through other non player characters.
Steam User 1

Reviewed last month

When I played it the game was good not sure whay is going on now
Steam User 3

Reviewed last year

Love the game and it's prequel

How To Survive 2

Game Discussion

Anonymous

Steam User 4

Steam User 10

Steam User 3

Steam User 4

Steam User 2

Steam User 1

Steam User 3