Endzone – A World Apart Gameplay Preview – Post apocalyptic village sim

Endzone – A World Apart is a management sim. You are in charge of leading a small band of survivors in a post apocalyptic world destroyed by nuclear radiation.

You start off with just a dilapidated bus and a few survivors. You have two resources your villagers can gather in the beginning, wood and scrap. They can be used to build structures and craft equipment. The consumable resources for villagers are food and water. You can gather them in many different ways. As is the case with most management sims, you don’t control the villagers directly. You mainly issue general orders and they are carried out automatically.

The game is pretty relaxing to play but it does have a lot of deep systems to learn. The world goes through many dynamic weather cycles. Drought, sandstorms, and radioactive rainstorms are some of the few challenges your village will have to face. Each of these weather cycles have a rather large impact on your village. Drought will dry up lakes and crops and vegetation will grow much slower. Stronger shelters are required to protect your villagers from vicious sandstorms and so forth. Surviving will take a lot of forethought and proper planning.

The game also has some neat interconnected mechanics in place that will give your village a fighting chance. For example, building a school will increase the education level of the children. This actually has an impact on the game. Children with higher education levels will grow up to take better care of their clothing and equipment so they last longer. The in game tutorial and glossary goes over all the facets of successfully building a thriving village so I highly recommend people check it out before starting a new save.

The game’s main appeal and challenge comes in the delicate balancing act of gathering enough resources to survive while expanding your village at the same time. Surviving all the weather cycles and raiders require advanced technology and structures as resources become depleted. Making use of resources and labor efficiently is key to survival. The village building aspect is also an appealing factor, you can create a well organized and aesthetically pleasing layout.

Overall, Endzone – A World Apart is a pretty solid and relaxing management sim. It doesn’t feel as hectic as other sims such as Frost Punk where things always seem to go wrong and you’re perpetually on the brink of collapse every day. This doesn’t mean that the game is easy or a walk in the park though, it’s still definitely challenging. It has nice quality of life improvements to make it more accessible to play and it definitely has one of the best tutorials I’ve ever seen. It’ll actually teach you how to play the game.