Survarium is a free to play MMOFPS set in the post-apocalyptic future. Currently, Survarium is in its early stages, with a lobby and match-made multiplayer, with plans for larger PVE and open world experiences right around the corner. Players take on the role of one of the "lucky" survivors. We caught up with Vostok Games PR & Marketing Director Oleg Yavorsky to find out more about this unique game.
MMORPG: For players who may be hearing about it for the first time, can you give them a run down?
Oleg Yavorsky: SURVARIUM is a F2P MMOFPS set in the near future. The game focuses on the aftermath of a massive ecological catastrophe on Earth, the reasons behind which are only vaguely known. Only a splinter of the Earth’s population survived and the player is among the lucky few. Yet, the player’s life is harsh and full of risk – he now has to fight for his life and resources left after the civilization’s demise.
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MMORPG: What types of gear are in the game and can players use upgrades to boost their power? For example, can you give players a breakdown of artifacts?
OY: When the player begins his path in the new world, he joins one of the in-game factions and starts accomplishing missions to level up his character and access advanced gear and weapons available with the faction. When developing his character the player is free to choose the gear according to his style of play – from a quick and light-armored artifact hunter up to a blunt-heavy warrior. Skill trees such as physical training, shooting practice and knowledge of artifacts are available for the player to develop his character’s specialization even further. To cap it all, when in-game, the player can pick up artifacts from anomalies and use them as boosters to increase his chances in battle.
Each artifact gives you a passive or active bonus (when activated). For example, in passive state Sponge absorbs toxic gas and radioactive dust, whereas when activated, it becomes a deadly grenade breeding a cloud of poisonous spores on explosion. Another one, called Spring, in its regular state increases the speed of the character’s movement. When activated it temporarily increases metabolism to considerably speed up the energy restoration speed. Find out all the details on how artifacts work in Survarium at the dedicated section of our website.
MMORPG: How can players survive anomalies?
OY: The answer is simple: pick up the gear and equipment providing decent protection against anomalies, modify your outfit to ensure even better protection, and finally make sure your character is advanced in the Knowledge of the Forest skill tree. This way you ensure you stand a great chance surviving the deadly anomalies in the game.
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MMORPG: Right now the game is heavily focused on PvP, but you have plans for a lot more PvE content coming in the near future. Can you give us some hints on what is coming up?
OY: Yes, the game is still in Early Access on Steam and we add a lot of new features with every update. This year we plan to introduce the PvE gameplay and the long-awaited Freeplay mode to Survarium on top of the existing PvP experience. This mode is expected to combine elements of research, confrontation between players and survival in a hostile world. You will be able to perform faction missions, participate in random events and explore the map in search of valuable items. So overall this should be a new exciting step in the game’s evolution for many players out there. Keep an eye on the game’s web-site for more news later this year.
MMORPG: Of the PvP modes that you have, which seems to be the most popular? Is it something like Team Deathmatch or Research?
OY: According to our recent poll, the Research mode is number one among the Survivors. Second-popular is the Battery Retrieval mode and third best would be the all-time classic - Team Deathmatch.
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MMORPG: Now that the game is out there in front of players, how are you handling player feedback?
OY: We do our best to cope with all the feedback and ideas the players give us, but usually the players win. There are various platforms the players can use to communicate on the game, such as the official forum, Steam, our Facebook community, Twitter, Youtube and so on. We have been lucky to enjoy help of community activists acting as admins and moderators of the official social network groups and in-game chat. Would be totally impossible to handle all this communication without you guys! This said, we regularly collect the players’ feedback to the game updates and provide our comments to it as much as the time permits. We also run various types of contests and giveaways from time to time. Community chats and podcasts is something we are trying to experiment with, on top of the Developer’s Diaries released at times when we plan some next big features into the game.
MMORPG: What are some of your upcoming plans for Survarium in the next few months?
OY: Our next big update currently in the works is version 0.40 for PvP. It’s expected to introduce a new user interface, weapon customization, as well as a new graphics renderer for lower-spec systems. Survarium updates usually come out every month-and-a-half or two, so keep an eye on the game’s news and follow us in the social networks to stay up-to-date on all the happenings.
