Once Human
The apocalypse changed everything. Human, animal, plant… all are infested by an alien creature – Stardust. As a Meta-Human, you can survive the contamination and use the power of Stardust. Play alone or join others to fight, build and explore. When the world is in chaos, you are our last hope.
Survive in the wilderness
You wake up in the middle of nowhere. You’ll have to brace yourself for the cruelty of nature (from monsters to lack of food); however, Stardust’s influence does not restrict to living things, it also affects the soil and water. Eating polluted food and drinking dirty water will reduce your Sanity. When your Sanity drops, your max HP would drop accordingly. To eat or not to eat, it’s a question.
Fight against monsters
Battle numerous enemies that are once human, and challenge bosses from another dimension to gain powerful items and ease Stardust pollution. You are not only fighting for yourself, but also fighting for the survivors.
Customize weapons
With about 100 gun blueprints divided into seven categories for you to collect and craft, every loot grants you something new. Did I mention accessories and gun perks? Right, they are the heroes here. If our current weapon cannot satisfy your need, you can add different parts and perks, upgrade your firearm to your heart’s content.
Build territory
Use Territory Core to build a house of your own. You can keep a practical style, jamming everything needed in a small room; or you can design a townhouse with a patio, kitchen, garage… The best part is, you can relocate your territory any time you want!
Find out the truth
Delve into the truth of Stardust, find out where it came from, and what it wants. In the journey of seeking truth, you may feel alone, but you are never alone. There are several factions in the world, some can be violent and hostile, others might be friendly and helpful. Explore human settlements to learn their stories or exterminate bosses without leaving a name for survivors to praise, the choices are yours.
Steam User 449
For a free game it is enjoyable, but none of your friends will wanna play with you even though it is free.
Steam User 295
Great game, but the monthly wipes kinda killed it for me. Should have some servers without wipe were we could just make communities and grind story together.
Steam User 228
Pros:
-Free game - probably the best free game I've played to date
-Gorgeous looking aesthetics with a lot of unique mechanics - I've paid a fortune for high end games that look and play half as good as this one
-Devs stated no 'pay to win' features, with all bought items being cosmetics and therefore optional purchases
-Consistent updates to improve gaming quality
-Friend invites to full servers - this happens at the start of the phases currently, but if a server is full, you have individual friend codes to invite additional people to play with you
-Reactive devs, with a discord server that allows for suggestions and posts all updates
-PvE and PvP options, with the ability to make multiple characters across multiple server types
-Great building opportunities - recent fix to help with some of the janky building mechanics, and although it's not 100% flawless at the moment, I assume future patches will enhance this further, and the latest dev talk as I'm writing this showed an increase in place-able items and more blueprints and shop items, which will lead to more creativity and making more unique and bigger bases
-Server wipes - putting this as a pro, since other similar game types that don't offer this usually have an inflated marketplace with noone starting off at the same levels, and I feel like it's more difficult to start as a new character because of this. This game offers server wipes with new scenarios promised to be built, so even if you don't currently have time to play consistently, you can wait a season and hop onto the next. This way feels like everyone on a server starts with the same advantages/disadvantages and is more satisfying to play like this in my opinion
Cons:
-Not well optimised currently, with server lags when a larger amount of players are in the same space. This is more frustrating in PvP, but affects any type of server. Hopefully this is a future fix
-Chaotic UI with many 'stores' and 'currencies' in lots of different places which can be confusing and unnecessary, but hopefully this is a future fix
-Servers going dead towards the later phases with no current ability for others to join to fill that gap, and no ability to take your character out to join a different scenario. This is definitely making this game better with a dedicated friend group
-Paid items are not account wide currently, and region locked
-Characters currently created being region locked, which ties all progress to 1 region
-Each new character created is forced to do the tutorial and full story mode again, even if you have characters who have already completed this on a different server, within the same account
-Gambling style loot crates, that cost a small fortune to obtain everything, with dupes not converting into any type of decent alternative. Out of everything in the shop, this is the most hated feature server wide, with daily posts in the discord suggestions to remove it/be more transparent with % rates/offer items as a bought option too/no dupes/not use this as a method since it seems predatory etc
Overall, a great game with an exciting future, and a lot of the listed 'cons' may be fixed in future updates and don't negate all of the pros imo. Give it a try, and happy gaming :)
Steam User 236
Look—I was just gonna try it for a few hours. I blinked, and suddenly it’s 3 AM, my base has tripwires, I’m hoarding mushrooms like a feral raccoon, and I’m emotionally bonded to a rifle I named “Susan.”
This game?
Absolutely unhinged in the best way. It’s like Fallout, The Forest, and Stranger Things had a weird little apocalypse baby—and somehow it works. The world is rotting and glowing and horrifying and BEAUTIFUL. And I? I’m thriving. Screaming, but thriving.
✔️ Base building? Addictive.
✔️ Crafting? Endless.
✔️ Combat? Chunky, chaotic, and so satisfying.
✔️ Lore? Creepy as hell, and I need answers NOW.
✔️ Monsters? I love them. I fear them. I run from them and come back with a flamethrower.
Even the bugs feel like part of the chaos. I shouldn’t love this game this much—but it scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had.
10/10 — I’ve joined a cult, and it’s this game.
Steam User 120
First and foremost this game has a ridiculous level of monetization. It has all the hits. Optional monthly subscription, cash shop, season passes, loot boxes, the lot. It is essentially 100% cosmetics, there is no pay-to-win, however it is pretty rampant. It's never forced in your face, there's not much advertising for it, but if you're susceptible to it, this is a game to avoid. I speak from experience.
All that said, I've enjoyed this game immensely and it hit me much harder than I expected. It ticks almost everything on my list for an ideal game, and while it has some pretty obvious flaws, they have been easy to overlook considering how fun and engaging the rest of the game is. Once Human not only takes influence from other games, it copies some of them outright, and adopts their entire feel and atmosphere. The combat is The Division, the movement and stealth is Breakpoint, the lore and atmosphere is Control. I haven't played a lot of survival games with building elements so I don't know what to compare that aspect to exactly, but I see a lot of comparisons to Fallout 76. The base-designing is fantastic and I've managed to make a home I absolutely love.
The gameplay starts out following the main story and has you clearing towns, bases and facilities all across the map. You're rewarded for almost everything you do, and looting is very addictive because almost all of the housing decoration recipes are hidden in trash cans and cupboards. Combat is heavily gun-based, with a decent melee system, and allows you to use Pokémon-like minions called 'Deviants' to assist you in various ways - such as attacking the enemy with fire attacks, healing you and your friends, or debuffing enemies to make them easier to defeat. You can capture the Deviants out in the wild, or as drops from bosses, and then store them in containment units in your house for use later. Many of them even do work around the home, such as helping you cook, tending to your crops, or juicing up your generators for more power output.
The elephant in the room for me was the season model. This is a concept I did not like in Diablo IV, and was very hesitant about here. A season in Once Human lasts for 6 weeks, during which new phases will introduce things like map expansions, new open-world events and new Deviants and loot to acquire. Once the 6 week period is over, you sign up for a new season and start over. In the long-run, this will likely prove to be an issue for many. In the short-term however I've come to feel it's a decent system. There are two different maps currently running PvE seasons, and they come in multiple difficulties. Higher difficulties offer more things to find and acquire, as well as encounter changes and more. Starting on the default server setting - Manibus Novice - is probably the best bet, so later down the line you can do Manibus Normal or Hard and have new reasons to repeat the same map. It's worth noting you retain a lot of things between seasons like various currencies, recipes and upgrades, that sort of thing. At the end of a season everything is also sent to your Eternaland - an instanced island you can build on almost without limits that never resets. It can essentially act like a home base and you can send supplies gathered from previous seasons to the current one from your Eternaland (within limits).
I'm not sure how long I will play Once Human in the long term, as I have yet to finish my first season, but the game has been a very addictive and fun experience for my first 250 hours, and I'm excited to see where it goes in the future and how well the developers treat the game. I have friends that have played with me and not spent a single dime, so for the price of free it's worth playing at least a single season. There's a ton of content.
Steam User 395
Pros:
-The world and atmosphere are amazing.
-Combat is enjoyable.
-The building is nice and the fact you can relocate your base soo easily is also a big thumbs up.
Cons:
-The enemies are not a threat, it's embarrassing how easy and boring they are.
-Building can be frustrating at times.
-Grindy and time-gated.
-A season wipe? Who thought this was a good idea?
Steam User 133
The game itself is rather good for a typical FREE game, for me Personally the 6 week WIPE (or close to 6weeks) is not it for me.
other people might enjoy it cause its a new start on a different map, and as much you can keep your blueprints and weapons etc.
it ain't it for me, also im afraid that even if i move my stuff over every wipe that at some point when i stop playing for a while and the wipe happends again, that i will lose all that progress i had for (the amount of said wipes).