At this point, the survival crafting genre has become one of the four horses for the apocalypse. A trend was started by ARK: Survival Evolved and Rust, both of which were in early access for far too long, were open-world games with a focus on crafting, and were horribly optimized. This opened the floodgates of imagination by developers, who started building their own Early Access games within the same genre. It has been some time since the craze died down, but people are still wary of survival games with the same mechanics. I’m one of these people – having put in quite a few hours in ARK: Survival Evolved, I was quite taken aback that there was another entry in the same genre. It is a bit too late to cash in on the gold rush, isn’t it? Turns out, I was in for a different sort of adventure. I’m talking about AETHUS – a game which basically screams “it’s My Time at Mars”.
AETHUS is an open-world survival crafting game developed and published by Pawsmonaut Games. There’s a fair amount of base-building involved in the game, and it’s a top-down crafter, so there’s that. AETHUS is currently only on Steam and will probably be like that for some time.
Rite of Survival
In AETHUS, we are travelling to a distant planet of AETHUS. Currently a miner in a hyper-capitalistic mining regime, we step into the shoes of Maeve and her companion bot, Roland, as they traverse Claim AZ1. Originally a claim worked upon by her grandpa, Maeve aims to find out what happened to the original expedition sent to the planet. Unlike most other games, AETHUS has a story-building aspect tied to very deep progression. The only thing that comes close is My Time at Portia, and it’s not really a “survival” game per se.
AETHUS is currently playable only in single-player mode, and it’s honestly fine. At this point, larping about co-op or multiplayer has become a habit for me, so I’d definitely go ahead and suggest it anyways. It seems that the core of the game revolves around the main quest’s completion and the storytelling surrounding it – something which would be difficult to track in a multiplayer setting.
Mastering the Elements
AETHUS isn’t really much different from the average open-world survival crafting game. We need to gather resources, build a base, harvest more resources, and so on and so forth. Of course, the game helps you get started, and with each quest’s completion, one gets to unlock more stuff to build. More of the story gradually also comes forward in the conversations between Maeve and Roland, which also allows us to expand our base and build more stuff. The game, in its essence, with the grandpa backstory, feels somewhat like an off-world Stardew Valley – except AETHUS is about way more crafting than farming.
There is a dedicated introduction to explain why Maeve came to the planet. Aethus is essentially a mining planet, and the Astral Resource Corporation (the company where Maeve is employed) occasionally sells permits to mine certain portions of the planet for resources. Of course, it’s really difficult to tell which claims (or plots of land) actually have the mineral resources that can make Maeve rich enough not to depend on her soul-sucking job at the Astral mining company. With Roland’s help and a bit of “hacking”, she was able to locate the claim and take a shuttle there (after taking a loan to buy the claim for herself). This intro sounded weirdly similar to my own life, where I’m trying to find stuff to do for myself rather than for my company because of how soul-sucking the work really feels – I’m with you in this one, Maeve!
AETHUS revolves around gathering material from the landscape and then using it to craft stuff. Some of the resources need to be transformed into others in certain machines (which need to be constructed first). Certain minerals, like kalynite and silica, can only be found deep inside the surface of the world. Unfortunately, most of the places are underground and in hazardous places without oxygen, which won’t be accessible without upgrades. For upgrades, we need to reach back to our ex-employers at Astral Resource Corporation – because that will help us progress even further underground without damaging the environment. Progression is essentially tied to the completion of the quests, , so a lot of things gradually get unlocked later on when the associated quests are completed. Investigating a previously dead expedition could unveil a wealth of knowledge as well as blueprints for more stuff to construct, as well as hidden dangers under the surface.
Echoes of the Wild
AETHUS isn’t graphically the most impressive thing that I have played recently. There are games within the open world survival crafting genre that look way better. However, AETHUS stands out with its unique top-down view and extensive use of the mouse for all sorts of work. The control layout used almost reminded me of old World of Warcraft (with some improvements), if that says anything. Artistically, I’d say AETHUS is a very unique entry in an otherwise crowded genre – the art is done with some passion, even though it does feel like an acquired taste.
Ambient music and noise in AETHUS is a bit too quiet. That gives an eerie feeling of “we’re alone, but are we really?” in the otherwise vacant plot of land. Considering that there had been bloodshed in the past, dangers do lurk beneath the ground, and the music is just good enough to ensure we’re completing our quests while watching out for danger. Maeve and Roland’s voices (especially Roland’s) are really well done. It’s good to see so much focus on Roland’s voice acting, since he does explain many of the in-game mechanics to Maeve (and by extension, to us).
Real Talk
AETHUS tries to stand out in an otherwise overcrowded genre and certainly makes its voice heard. While progression does feel strictly linear at times, it does help us to understand the planet and what happened to the expeditions that tried to colonize the planet before. For folks who’re into moderately heavy story-driven games and like survival and crafting, AETHUS is definitely worth a try.
FINAL SCORE: 75/100
