// KOTAKU — GAMING
Athanasia Is System Shock With Dinosaurs, And It Works So Damn Well
AthanasiaBlack Lantern CollectiveIndie of the WeekMomentum Games
Describing a game as “like System Shock” always perturbs me a little. People start to expect a game that equals System Shock, and that’s hardly fair. Also, despite being there day one for Thief: The Dark Project and Deus Ex, I didn’t play System Shock at the time, so I’d feel like I was betraying you if I described a game that way. So I won’t. I won’t say that Athanasia is like System Shock for all those reasons. But damn, it’s a fine thing to play, even in its Early Access release.
Plot: Dinosaurs have taken over a futuristic facility. It’s not in space, and I wish it were, and honestly given that you spend the whole game exploring the vast, metallic complex, you can absolutely pretend it is, but the truth is it’s located in South America. You are Carmen Flores, and you’re here to figure out what happened to all the researchers, and why the place is crawling with dinos. To do that, you’re going to need to do an awful lot of exploration, a small amount of extremely cautious combat, and a whole load of typing numbers like 0451 into computer terminals. It’s all that good stuff, with variant paths, innovative ways to set traps and conserve ammo, and all the furious emails about people forgetting to change their passcodes you could ever wish for.
The retro aesthetics belie a lot of modern complexity. Athanasia has proper physics, meaning you can stack boxes to create paths, or topple swivel chairs over walkways for personal amusement, in a truly enormous game that only very rarely features split-second load times. While you will eventually be lugging about a shotgun, pistol, crossbow, and various sci-fi gadgets, you’ll always be doing your very best not to use them given just how scarce ammo and energy proves to be. You’re much better off setting some haphazard traps, usually involving panicked shooting at gas canisters you put next to bear traps in the hope that the velociraptors don’t swarm you the moment you open the door. Or you could spend ages tracking down the ingredients needed to create a toxin and pump it into the room where an unfathomable number of the buggers have gathered. Or seek the keycards necessary to try to sneak around them unnoticed like a big cowardy-custard.
Something I really enjoy about this is how madly sprawling each section of the game proves to be, in a way that at first feels overwhelming until you start piecing it all together and building your mental map. (And you’ll need a mental one, as the paper maps you can print out from machines don’t show your location and are utterly useless.) Each of the three big areas I’ve played through started out feeling like far too much, and then eventually becoming deeply familiar, multi-floored locations through which I know all the shortcuts and secret passages. And wow, that third one, set a good seven hours into the game, is colossal, built around a vast central collapsing hollow lined with precarious pipes and wonky walkways. Finding the keycards, unlocking the lifts, and carefully clearing out the predators becomes a soothingly methodical process, packed with surprise attacks and novel twists.
Your inventory is cruelly small, requiring careful Tetris arrangements in order to maintain a full suite of tools and weapons, as well as having room for meds, spare ammo, and that huge container of gasoline you’re convinced is about to come in very useful. There are moments where you’ll have to make difficult sacrifices, choosing between having every variety of medicine you might need, or a tool that’ll let you force particular doors open. Thankfully Athanasia is very conscious of this, and will make sure to hide vital tools in newer locations in case you made an odd choice, and never demands wanton backtracking.
This is an Early Access release, and currently contains only the first half of the game. As such it’s a bit wibbly in places. Overall it’s extremely solid, and for the most part feels like