Goliath is a mix of action/adventure/survival games where the player is alone on a distant world and must explore and find food and resources to make it. Emphasis is slightly less on the need to find food and more on finding resources and building tools to survive. While exploring this world the discovery is made there are not only friendly creatures but there are also dangerous animals and warring peoples. Faced with these challenges the logical solution is of course to build some Goliaths (mech suits).
During PAX East I had the opportunity to play Goliath for a bit and get a feel for how the game works throughout the different level ranges and with the different Goliaths. The basic wooden Goliath is the first one the player will be able to build, and was the first one I played with. This Golaith moves around pretty well but as you might expect from a giant robot made of wood, it doesn’t have very high durability. However, you can pretty quickly roll out of the way of attacks if you pay attention. Also, since wood is alive and grows, when it rains the wooden Goliath will actually heal itself, which is very helpful.
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The second basic Goliath is the metal version, which is much more durable than the wooden one, but it also moves much slower. In the metal Goliath it is also a really good idea to pay attention to the weather and to take care not to fall into any water because, as one would expect, water will cause the metal Goliath to rust. There’s also some interesting world interaction with the metal goliath where some animals wouldn’t attack the wooden Goliath but they will attack the metal one.
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The last Goliath players build is one made out of stone/crystal. This one has the highest durability out of all of them and it actually has pretty good speed because it rolls around on a wheel. Rain and water didn’t seem to have any sort of effect on this one though so it is one of the safest ones to roll around in. All of the Goliaths have various upgrades and improvements which can be made through leveling and gathering the right materials. These upgrades also augment how the Goliath will affect the world around them.
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In addition to all of the Goliaths there are different factions who are all fighting with each other. Through the course of play I encountered some of these factions and was able to help some of them out. However, there isn’t really the option of helping all of them because as you help one faction their plight will improve a bit while the other factions will be a bit worse off. Additionally, player death isn’t entirely inconsequential either. When you die you aren’t able to help anyone for a while, because you were dead you are going to have to spend some time fixing your Goliaths. When you get back out there the world state might have changed a bit and the people who you had been helping might be worse off.
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The game world for Goliath is procedurally generated as well so each playthrough, and the experiences of each player, will be a bit different. At launch this will be a single player game but shortly after co-op will be added in. Since everything will be procedurally generated it will be a map sharing version of co-op where one player goes to the other player’s map and helps them out.
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Goliath will be available on Steam on May 12th for PC, MAC, and Linux.
