Open Country | Preview, surrounded by nature

Open Country | Preview

One of the greatest strengths of video games is their being able to immerse us in worlds completely different from ours and their making us live extraordinary adventures. Alien universes, xenomorphic invasions and leaps into past ages: the range of possibilities this media is capable of is nothing short of boundless and, whatever our most hidden desires, we will most likely find how to satisfy them thanks to the videogame world. But who said you have to escape to distant worlds in a video game? Certainly not Funlabs and 505 Games, respectively software house and publisher behind Open Country, a survival title that promises to immerse us in fantastic scenarios where we will learn to love nature and understand its dangers.

We tried the game with the following PC:

GPU: Zotac RTX 3070 Twin Edge OC MOBO: Asus ROG STRIX Z370-F RAM: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16GB DDR4 3200MHz CPU: Intel i5 8600k SSD: Sabrent SSD 2TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M. 2 2280 Keyboard: Corsair K70 LUX Red LED Cherry MX Brown Mouse: Fnatic Flick 2 Headphones: Logitech G930 Monitor: Samsung C27HG70 Quad HD 144Hz HDR

Open Country: hunting and beyond

In the last few days we have had the opportunity to get acquainted with the early game phases of Open Country, a work that will be released next June 3 on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, while obviously remaining playable also on next gen thanks to the backward compatibility of the new generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft. Open Country is a title that is based on a simple but certainly captivating idea for many players, which is to let us live what could be the life of any hunter.

To be honest, Open Country is not just a mere hunting simulator, as there are many others on the market, but a much more complete work on paper. In fact, it will be possible, in addition to taking up a rifle and lurking in search of some unwary animal, also to engage in other activities, such as fishing and, of course, the complex and articulated art of survival.

Not to be underestimated is the presence of a handful of motorized vehicles, such as quads or snowmobiles for snowy areas, which make everything even more varied and dynamic. A sort of story mode completes the overall picture, which acts as a common thread between one excursion and another and gives that extra bit of movement to the whole. At the moment it is difficult to evaluate its actual goodness and understand if this narrative component will go beyond merely serving as a contour to the game system, but it is undeniable that it is something pleasant and not obvious, which promises to prove to be a more than discreet additional quid.

Survival, but not too much

The impression we had from this first meeting with Open Country is that of a game that tries to take back the experience of works such as theHunter Call of the Wild declining it in a survival key, without however wanting to push the foot excessively on the accelerator in this perspective. While there are in fact the classic and essential indicators to keep an eye so dear to the genre, such as the bar of hunger, thirst and body temperature, the game system does not seem to want to be too punitive or consequently make outings in the lush game landscapes a frustrating thing.

Beware though: woe to evaluate too early this apparently not too accentuated punitive spirit of the game. In fact, the latest effort by Funlabs has a large number of variables to take into consideration, such as the inevitable crafting, the need to create shelters and other structures and much more. The water will also obviously have to be purified before being drunk and care must also be taken not to eat poisonous berries and some other inedible substance. In short, although the soul of Open Country seems to want to rely more on the experience of hunting and fishing in the open air, it is undeniable that there are numerous cards on the table that can also make the survival aspect of the title intriguing.

These impressions, however, come from those that are the first hours of the Open Country game and it is therefore not to be excluded that in the more advanced stages or in some other biome (there are three maps in total in the game, each of them with a different setting) the survival soul of the game can emerge more vigorously.

There is still something to do

But how does Open Country behave on the artistic and technical side? If on the one hand the work of Funlabs manages to convince all in all with lush and beautiful settings to look at, on the other hand there is even more than something to fix. Although with the configuration at the beginning of the article we had no problems in terms of crashes, framerate drops or other, it is undeniable how the survival / hunting simulator still needs to be refined on a technical level.

During our test we came across a long series of pop ups, particularly annoying while observing medium / long distance landscapes. There are also some minor problems, such as NPCs that sink into the ground up to the waist and similar events. All in all, this is nothing too annoying or that cannot be fixed from here to the official launch of the title, which we still remember missing more than a couple of weeks.

Where Open Country has us instead surprised in the negative is in the technical settings, which on PC are currently almost totally absent. No graphics settings or anything else: we could only select whether to put the game in full screen or in a window and at what resolution to run it, among other things not even covering the native one of the monitor. In addition to 2048 × 1152 the game on a Quad HD panel did not in fact let us go.

We are sure that these are aspects that will be corrected before June 3, but at present this situation leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. For the rest, Open Country seems to be an honest title, able to offer a pleasant gaming experience and to be able to give many hours of play to anyone who loves nature and hunting

The atmosphere of Open Country managed to charm you? Get ready to launch and book the Funlabs and 505 Games title right now!