It isn’t news that the survival crafting genre has grown increasingly saturated with a steady stream of titles vying for the attention of genre fans, so upcoming games likeThe Last Plague: Blightneed to stand out more than ever to captivate an audience that has nearly seen it all. InThe Last Plague’s case, these standout qualities come from soloindie gamedeveloper Sergei Bezborodko’s passion for realism, not for realism’s sake but rather because the proper dose of realism can make a game all-encompassingly immersive.
When things behave more or less the way they do in real life, players can truly feel part of the game’s world and that’s what has led Bezborodko to lean toward a more hardcore survival game with as few abstractions as reasonably possible. Bezborodko spoke with Game Rant about how he heavily researched real-worldcrafting and survival techniques, which leads to survival gameplay where every ounce of progress feels like the player is really surviving in a hostile environment.
The Last Plague Is A Survival Game Founded on Realism
The Last Plague’sgameplay is rooted in realismthat includes most aspects of the survival experience. One of many examples is wood: Bezborodko noted that inThe Last Plague, players don’t merely gather wood by hitting a tree with an axe. The tree must be felled, and the log must be cut into manageable pieces. From here, logs must be placed vertically so they can be chopped into halves for firewood. Many of the game’s systems operate with this sort of granularity, and it becomes intuitive once players realize that the game is rather close to real life.
“One aspect of these games I love is getting lost in all the details of what the game allows you to do. I wanted to avoid streamlining things too much so that I could build a more immersive experience overall.
For example, instead of having a simple “wood” resource where chopping a tree down gets you 10 wood, picking up a stick gets you 1 wood, and placing a wall tile uses 20 wood—I wanted the game to be very deliberate with the materials you find and their usage in the game.”
To obtain drinkable water, players will need to craft a bowl and fill it with water from a nearby source, then physically carry the bowl of water in hand to their campfire to boil it. Although this realism introduces a steeper learning curve initially, it eventually feels natural as players start interacting withThe Last Plague’spost-apocalyptic worldas if it were the real world and unlearn many of the genre’s typical gamifications.
The Last Plague Doesn’t Always Sacrifice Fun For Realism
This commitment to realism isn’t absolute, however, and Bezborodko pointed out that he made some concessions for the sake of playability after receiving feedback from testers. After all, real life can be extremely dull and games are entertainment, so somesurvival gameplay elementshave been tuned to trim down on real-world tediousness.
“I’ve actually pulled back a lot on the realism after getting a ton of feedback since the first playtest sessions back in 2021. I initially found the brutal realism enjoyable myself, but players and testers helped ground my design philosophy and make a few compromises here and there to make things more enjoyable for a wider audience, while still keeping the spirit of the game there.”
AlthoughThe Last Plagueis a hardcore survival crafting game geared toward genre veterans, Bezborodko has included aneasier difficulty modeto make the game more accessible, or to help newcomers toThe Last Plaguelearn its systems before diving into a higher difficulty. Bezborodko has expressed interest in even harder difficulty modes in the future, so it’ll be interesting to see what a hardcore mode in a hardcore game will look like.
