HomeNewsThe Tribe Must Survive
Out now in early access, The Tribe Must Survive is Frostpunk for people who love being afraid of the darkDo not let the campfire go out
Do not let the campfire go out
Image credit:Starbreeze Publishing
Image credit:Starbreeze Publishing
Yesterday I was off sick with a fever and, as I often do when I’m laid up ill, immediately set out to consume the most nihilistic and depressing entertainment media I could find. On the film front, I watched Session 9, in which some men hired to remove asbestos from a collapsing 19th century asylum do not have a very nice time. On the game front, I playedThe Tribe Must Survive, a colonymanagementsim from Walking Tree Games GmbH and Starbreeze Publishing, which isnow available in early access.
Image credit:Starbreeze Publishing/Rock Paper Shotgun
The Tribe Must Survive is set in what the devs have called a Lovecraftian Stone Age - a grotesque, primordial reality in which humans and animals appear as cave painting silhouettes with unblinking white eyes. The colony management mechanics feel like another love letter toFrostpunk’s radial base design and theme of surviving the elements. The heart of each game is your campfire, with facilities such as lumber camps, tents and crop fields placed on a surrounding grid. The difference is that rather than keeping the cold at bay, the purpose of the campfire is to protect you against the shadows after sundown, which creates an immediate, frantic rhythm of topping up wood supplies that are also, unhelpfully, needed for construction.
While The Tribe Must Survive’s interface is a little hard to read on a smaller monitor, I do like the new game’s atmosphere. It’s as much about sound as anything. There’s a constant undertone of ambient noise from the deep wilds beyond the circle of firelight, mixed with instrumental music that heightens and dies away based on just how disastrously you’re faring. Your tribespeople converse in whispers as they pad about: even the ring of their axes and hammers seems deliberately muffled.
Image credit:Starbreeze Publishing/Rock Paper Shotgun
At its worst, you might have to deal with a full-blown panic and bloody riots. The remedy for these cases of explosive bad morale is typically more light, though you can also perform spiritual ceremonies to rally the tribe. Further down the line, there’s the prospect of human sacrifice to appease a dominant faction. You can read more about the game’s social and mental health simulationin my previous piece about the game’s early access release.
EDIT…unless it’sDarkwood.
