The sheer number of sandbox games out there can feel like a squabble of barely clothed cavefolk pelting each other with rocks and trying to harvest resources from the earth with their bare grubby hands. But—at the risk of overstretching the analogy—only a few of these games evolve to the level of sustainable farming, wielding firearms, and building fortresses. To achieve that, a survival game in 2024 needs to offer something that really catches the eye, because clubbing rocks and chopping trees just won't cut it these days.
And upcoming survival sandbox Soulmask—which enters early access today—with its muggy Mesoamerican-inspired theming, certainly passes the early eye test. There are swamps inhabited by alligators and giant snakes that coil themselves around you, stepped pyramids, mechanised constructs controlled by unworldly magics, and an array of magical masks that make you stand out like a peacock at a pigeon gathering.
Mechanically, it looks interesting too, leaning into the open-world action-adventure template with a sizable progression tree, and the ability to approach combat encounters through stealth as well as full frontal assaults. To that end, there are 75 skills spread across eight weapons, each tailored for different fighting styles. Being of the assassin persuasion myself, I particularly like the look of Optical Mimicry, which is basically a short-term invisibility move that lets you sneak up on enemies to one-shot them or change your angle of attack mid-combat. Combat-wise it all feels a little more involved than your typically more stripped-back survival experience.
The game's chief producer, Zima, suggested that Soulmask will ask a few mind-bending questions of the player too. "The theme is about the development of civilization: 'consciousness uploading,'" he said. "When you put on a Soulmask, are you still you? When you upload your consciousness and leave your physical body, where is your 'self'? And what about when your consciousness is uploaded into a mask? When you become a mask, can you share control of your body with others through the mask? When thinking about these things, I'm often fascinated by the possibilities it brings."
So a survival sandbox game with an existential bent. That's (maybe) a first, though during your early hours in this world you'll probably be too busy finding your feet and contending with the elements to engage with the higher-minded stuff. A core mechanic here is the Soulmask. There are 10 of these masks, each of which offers its own array of unique skills to help you in exploration and combat.
These masks also let you subdue tribespeople, which feeds into the management side of the game. "We are a little tired of endlessly chopping down trees, planting land, and crafting equipment. I really don’t want to hang on the workbench doing these repetitive things all the time. I want someone to help me handle it all," said Zima. "So 'intelligent NPCs' naturally came to mind. In Soulmask, they are called tribesmen, and they will help players take care of all the busywork." You'll be able to recruit up to 20 of these tribesmen in early access, each with their own skill sets, characteristics, and talents. It's a neat way of adding some individuality to what I imagine will largely function as worker drones in your tribe, forcing you to familiarise yourself with each tribesperson to figure out how to best utilise them.
It sounds intriguing, and to me at least recalls the excellent Kenshi, which struck a beautiful balance between the moment-to-moment rigours of surviving in a hostile land and an in-depth building and management system.
Soulmask's been kicking around in beta for a little while, but its early access release will apparently mark a big jump in what's available to players. You'll be able to venture beyond the rainforest into volcanic wastes, wetlands, ancient ruins, frozen tundras, among other biomes, and there'll be over 20 dungeons to explore, as well as three procedurally generated ones. You'll also get to play around with new masks, and there are six world bosses waiting for you out there too.
There's some free DLC in the pipeline, and the studio is already looking ahead to how it can expand that clan experience in the future. "We have always hoped that the clansmen can be more agile and flexible, so will look to enrich the activities of the clansmen in their free time, such as going to the wooden dummies to practice fighting, using arrow targets to shoot arrows, etc," said Zima. "We will add new likes, dislikes, characteristics and talents to the tribespeople, further enriching the tribe’s personality, and continuing to optimize the tribe’s work-related processes and performance. We are also thinking about introducing more AI technologies to make the tribe more interactive in a real sense."
