Once Human is an open-world survival crafting MMO whose Beta details I mostly received filtered through the amusing lens of Bhagpuss. Based on those posts, I wishlisted the game and promptly forgot all about it. Then Tuesday came along and now its officially released. I played for almost six hours straight on that first evening, and not because it was, as my 5-year old terms it, a “stay day.”

Nor, incidentally, because the game necessarily deserves it.

Let’s start with the Pros, I guess. First, the game is free to play and not obnoxious about it. By that I mean I did not seem to get prompted to buy the Battle Pass every time I opened a menu, or had a red exclamation mark on my UI until I opened the shop, or the myriad of similar design disasters. Indeed, there is a Wish lottery mechanic (for cosmetics) somewhere in the game, but I was not actually able to find it. Maybe it unlocks later? I found a few vendors who require obscure currencies for vague items, but near as I can tell, none of them were extra bag slots, carrying capacity, or the like.

Second, Once Human does seem to support a rather robust survival crafting experience. You are encouraged to build a base immediately once out of the tutorial, and you can do so almost anywhere not already occupied by other players and/or the pre-existing set pieces. I also really appreciated the ability to go into “flight” mode when building, rather than having to awkwardly maneuver your character every which way. Collecting resources from trees/ore nodes is not too onerous at this early point, and you are overall encouraged to revisit points of interest to collect junk items that you then break down into smaller components to craft new items.

Then it struck me: Once Human is basically Asian Fallout 76.

Viewed from that lens, the veneer started to peel. Is the base-building better than Fallout 76? Absolutely not. Crafting? No. Quests? Nope. Environmental storytelling? Nonexistent thus far. The feeling of collecting and hoarding resources? Not even close. Both are post-apocalyptic, both have cryptids, and Sanity is basically Radiation – both reduce your maximum HP until healed and, hilariously, grant you special abilities if you accumulate too much (Whim vs Mutation).

I originally didn’t want to complain about the Once Human combat system in these early stages – tutorials going to tutorial – but it’s… trivial. Every creature died to 2-3 hits with a torch, and having access to guns makes it even more ridiculous. Presumably mobs will sponge more bullets later on, and there is a dodge-roll button, but the fact that Once Human will be releasing on mobile phones in two months does not inspire confidence. The boss (or mini-boss?) fights were more interesting, and seem to be where the devs spent most of their imagination capital. Not saying that Fallout 76’s combat system is groundbreaking or anything, but it nevertheless has a heft to it even early on that is definitely lacking in Once Human.

Again, it’s possible this is all a bit unfair this early in the experience. The map looks huge, they give you a motorcycle within the first few quests, the Deviation (pet-ish) mechanic seems akin to Pals from Palworld, which could be interesting. The notion of Seasonal world resets and ever-changing “scenarios” is fairly unique in the survival space, and could go a long way in keeping the experience fresh. Time will tell.

Time will also tell if I don’t just end up reinstalling Fallout 76 and playing that instead.