Stranded Deep is a hidden gem that found it’s way into my collection sometime over the summer. It was given as one of the Playstation Plus monthly free games, and if you missed it, you missed a goodie. Even if you missed it for free, it’s still worth looking into, as for a survival game, this one provides an absolute treat for an experience.
The game has a very simple concept. You start the game on your private jet, where things quickly go wrong. An unknown force strikes your plane, leaving it tumbling into the ocean. Your pilot is killed, but you survive and make it to a lone life raft. From here, it’s you against Mother Nature in a battle for your life. You pass out, only to awake near a small island. This is the only part of the game where it holds your hand and walks you through the basics of survival. You craft weapons, build a shelter, make a fire, and hunt and cook food. This learning period is short, and this will be the only time the game explains anything. The rest is up for you to figure out on your own.
While you start with your basic inflatable raft, you will want to quickly upgrade to one you build yourself, as the inflatable raft is slow and doesn’t lend much in the way of storage. You will build a simple raft at first. But as you progress, you can actually build some pretty insane crafts. It gets to be very fun later in the game.
As you explore the ocean and islands, you will come across lots of wrecks to loot, giving you more materials to build even more intricate crafts such as a boat motor, or even a small gyro-copter. But beware of danger at every corner. There are poisonous animals in the deep, and much larger creatures of the toothed variety.
This game truly leaves you feeling vulnerable. You’re always collecting wood for fires, thinking of ways to get water, having to watch how much sun exposure you’re getting, and making sure you can eat, all while trying to find a way out of your current predicament. All of that makes the value of staying alive much higher than any regular adventure game. Encounters with dangerous creatures feel much more meaningful. Even as you progress through the game and become more powerful through stat increases and better equipment, you still never feel totally in control. Which is a good feeling to have during a survival game. There are amazing boss creatures to be found, and must be faced to escape your experience, and the game features an interesting twist ending that will leave you questioning what is actually going on.
All in all, this is a hidden gem that I’m glad I stumbled across. Even if you missed getting it for free earlier this summer, you can still pick it up for a mere $10 through the Playstation Store. It’s worth every penny of it.
If you have any hidden gems like this you think I should check out, let me know!
