Survival Ascension

Supported interface languages at launch: English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Japanese, French, German, Swahili

You have only two goals: survive and ascend. In this rich, open world environment set in Earth's distant future, how you do that is up to you. When you start out in Survival Ascension, you will start in a first-person mode, alone in the wild. You will need to harvest resources, learn to craft new items, level your character, hunt, gather or grow edible crops. There will be both passive and hostile creatures around, so you will also need to figure out how to defend yourself (or at least get good at running and hiding).

Like certain other survival games, you will be able to tame, raise, and breed the creatures which share the land with you. You will also be able to hunt them for food and resources. Many of those creatures you will be able to ride either directly or when equipped with an appropriate saddle.

Unlike other survival games, Survival Ascension is focused on staying true-to-life on what's physically possible in the real world. This places various limits on what you can and cannot do both as a character in the game and through use of the creatures you tame. For example, resource quantities will refer to a number of kilograms of a given material. If you happen to tame a large eagle-like bird, you should not expect it to carry hundreds of kilograms of materials into the air -- at least not without a little assistance.

Also unlike other survival games, you will truly need to work your way up the technology tree from the beginning. Don't expect to jump straight into building thatch, cobblestone, or wooden structures. Instead, you will want to start out focusing on how to actually build a fire. Knowing how you would go about building one in real life will be immensely helpful and that knowledge will carry over directly into the game. Similarly, your first structure will likely be a simple Lean-to.

The earliest technologies in the game are based on the earliest technologies in human history. And, just like in real life, there will be multiple ways to accomplish most things. Your approach to starting a fire will depend on the resources you have at your disposal, and that will in-turn impact what other options open up in the technology tree. A little knowledge about the history of human invention will serve you well in this game.

But, Survival Ascension is not just a survival game. There is much more to the game than character progression, personally constructed items and structures, and tames.

Survival Ascension will feature a massively multiplayer online environment. As an MMO, you will interact with other players within the game world. You will compete for territory, resources, and survival. When you log out of the game, your character will remain in the game and will be susceptible to attack. It will be important to build up appropriate defenses to protect your assets, possessions, and your character's life.

Like other survival games, you will be able to construct defensive structures. With enough time and technology, they can even automatically defend you. However, in real life, even today, we do not have lethal automatic defensive technologies widely deployed. Defensive technologies are generally operated by people. And so, just like in real life, the same will be true in the game.

Survival Ascension is truly a "choose your own adventure" style game. While you will start out as an untrained barbarian, your skills will develop as you use them. As your basic skill and technology level progresses, new skill options will emerge. Want to be a rock climber? Start with scaling large hills and climbing trees. As you get better, move on to tougher challenges until you can free-climb a cliff. Want to be a pirate? Steal, buy, or build a boat and sail the seas pirating and pillaging anyone in your path! Want to lead a great civilization to glory? Acquire some land and start your own civilization!

As a civilization leader, you can plan out where your people can build different types of buildings and how many they can build of each. You can lay out where city walls, gates, and towers should be placed, and give priority to different building types. Some basic rules of life may override your priorities and attempts to micromanage your population. For example, if your citizens are hungry or thirsty, they will fulfill those needs before doing work for you. If they have no shelter, your people will prioritize building more shelters wherever you have designated for them to build a shelter. If you mistreat your people, they can even become unhappy, riot, and revolt.

Your people will naturally barter and trade with each other to fulfill their individual needs. As your civilization progresses, your people will move on to using more universally desirable resources as the basis of trade. Eventually, you will be able to designate a standard currency.

As the leader of your people, you will be able to tax them and use those taxes to hire guards or raise an army. You can post guards along walls and gates to automatically defend your territory. You can even use your conscripted army to attack other players.

For more details about Survival Ascension, please follow development progress on the Facebook community page (link on the right).