Beyond Mankind: The Awakening is a first-person shooter with a heavy emphasis on its story. It sees us in a space vessel overlooking our home planet Earth, a world now utterly devoid of civilization and overrun by post-apocalyptic mutants. We play as a set of two widely different characters. Our first is the son of an influential politician that plays a more passive role throughout the story. The second is a super-soldier of our own creation. From skills, gender, and cultural ethnicity, it is up to us to breed an optimal warrior out of what is known as the Techno-Womb.
None of this is made clear from a narrative point. It is only after spending enough time with the game do you get a sense of what is going on and that you are even playing as two different characters. The story featured here is certainly interesting, though it quickly becomes apparent that they have trouble communicating it and lack the time/budget to broaden it. To convey what I mean, allow me this strange comparison. This plot feels similar to watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy with someone who fast-forwards to see only the fight scenes and then the ending itself.
That may seem like an overly harsh way to start this off, but I wanted to impart as to why this title has such mixed reviews on Steam. This is a fascinating world that we experience like a roller-coaster ride without any downtime or even a satisfying conclusion. On that same note, I can respect some of these decisions, especially given the low-budget nature of this game. It doesn’t let up on the gas, for better or worse. In a short period of time, you will see a Chornobyl-looking zone, outer-space, freezing cityscapes, and a lot more. Beyond Mankind has many flaws, but being boring is not one of them.
Our first location shows us how to survive in this devastated world. Finding ourselves in an abandoned house, we learn to jump, crawl, and how to search for loot. Most importantly, we are taught to defend ourselves as several deceptively deadly rats infest this place. The combat knife is easily the most important tool we possess. Not only is it a backup weapon or way to save ammo, but it also lets you harvest meat from any creature you slay. Or in the case of seeing any baby rats, eating them whole. Yeah, apparently our lab-grown characters have quite the digestive system.
I was frankly hooked from the get-go, and the fast-paced story retained that feeling of ‘just one more mission’ before I opt to do something productive today. There is seemingly always something around the corner that it’s eager to show you. It was quite the jaw-dropper to go from that irradiated planet we used to call home then into the sterile environment of our spacecraft. Both have different tones and unique dangers. As you may imagine from such a grim universe, humanity still isn’t willing to play nicely with each other even after having destroyed Earth. Facing well-armed foes is a whole different kind of danger from the rabid mutants we were created to fight.
Along with the hunger and thirst system, it features other survival mechanics such as the need to sleep and monitor your body temperature. To put it bluntly, Beyond Humanity doesn’t implement any of them particularly well. A single drink can last you ages, and hunger rises much slower while being far easier to alleviate with random meat. The body temperature only came into play in one specific scenario and never again. Meanwhile, needing to sleep simply lowers your stamina and feels unnecessary. An early level shows us that we can collect wood to make a campfire, but that is also a gimmick. Each stage is entirely linear, with little reason to explore or stay for long. Adding to that, everything we collect is stripped from us at the end of every mission anyways.
When it comes to the RPG aspects, they fair even worse. For some reason, every perk we invest in is reset after a mission. This means we have to both re-equip our gear and remake our character-build frequently. It, unfortunately, gets worse. The experience we gain is woefully inadequate. In order to unlock the second part of the perk progression tree, your character needs to be level 7. By the end of the game, I was still at level 6 despite completing most side objectives and killing more than necessary. I have no idea how on earth anyone is supposed to reach a level of 12 to unlock the entire perk tree.
Beyond Humanity is far too ambitious in its mechanics. It is to the point that they can’t even make use of many of them, and they come off as a mere bullet-point to sell you on the game. Chief among these is the character relations that increase or decrease based on dialogue choices. None matter in the slightest, and ultimately, this feature harms the title. It falsely gives the perspective of a wider narrative to the player. We meet many one-off characters that we never encounter again. You can imagine how confused someone expecting to see them play a part in the story again feels when the credits suddenly roll in. An example being confessing your love to a squad-mate and then proceeding to have her never even mentioned again. The illusion of choice did this title no favors.
While most of the game’s mechanics completely miss the mark, it is not a terrible experience, all told. Things like the wonky hitbox to select stuff in your inventory can slightly get in the way, yet the gunplay is solid. I particularly like how scarce the ammo was, often causing one to curse themselves for missing a shot. Another strength of this title is in the set-pieces. There are many memorable events, alongside a large variety of environments. They nailed it when it comes to art direction. Its graphical assets are nothing to write home about, but they are used in such a way as to greatly increase the overall presentation. All the carefully placed small details and atmospheric additions did a ton for the visuals. Heck, you can even interact with some scenery such as turning on a sink faucet. It is difficult not to appreciate touches like these.
I enjoy Beyond Humanity far more than it may appear from this review. However, with the number of features that simply don’t function, they are things I can not gloss over or excuse in good conscience. This is quite a Frankenstein of a game and a prime example of feature creep. If they had made better use of their resources and focused on polishing their strong points, this could have been quite the gem. Throwing everything and the kitchen sink into their product was a tragically sad choice as they did manage to create an intriguing world. It does have its sparks of brilliance, like an occasion where you can wander off the beaten path and kill the dog of someone that previously did you wrong. Yet you never see said person again. Beyond Humanity feels like an early alpha build of a much greater game. You can see where the parts would click in and fall, but it is structurally unfinished. Like a puzzle set with several missing pieces, you can imagine the overall picture they were going for, though you can’t experience it.
- Speer DX Review - April 4, 2024
- The Legend of Santa Review - December 7, 2023
- GROOD Review - December 6, 2023