It’s time to return to the bug infested hellhole of Tenebris. Limbs will be lost, and eyes will be poked out. This is truly a place of horror, and crippled soldiers seeking injury pay. In other words:
Tenebris: Terra Incognita will make a man out of you, or well, less of a man. If you suffer from entomophobia, stay away! I played the demo when that was released, which I wrote about
here. My impressions from the demo were very favorable, so does the full release live up to the hype? Full release as far as Early Access will take you. Meaning, it’s missing a few crucial parts, like a complete campaign, and a few soldier classes. It’s expected to be in Early Access for one year. Anyway, let’s check it out.
Rock of death
In the far, far future, landing on random planets will always be dangerous. Seeing as most things out there in the cold vastness of space wants to feast on your juicy innards. It’s no difference for our little crew of the space-ship Solaris after crash-landing on the unknown planet Tenebris. Right from the get-go, you will have to fight bugs for survival. And it’s no easy task. The story, at least the parts I experienced, felt pretty simple, but that’s not a bad thing per se. Even so, I’m sure it will evolve after hand, as I already see indications of it being so. It starts with rescue missions, and the establishment of your base. Then missions evolve to find out what the threat is, and what can be done about it. I, for one, defeated a massive angry and terrifying Queen bug that took a couple of tries.
The campaign is not finished yet, but I think I reached the end of it, since the main missions just seem to end around level 16 or so.
Not sure if that’s the right line to yell when you are in shock, buddy!
The big mistake
When you pick difficulty for your campaign, you get to choose between
Standard and
Movie Horror. In my failing wisdom, I picked Movie Horror thanks to one specific difference between the two: permanent death of space marines. This was a huge mistake on my part, because one of the other changes to this setting is how reinforcements for the aliens work. You see, on Standard you have to kill the whole squad before a new one appears. This means that you can keep one alien alive, to top off your squad in healing and armor. It makes these encounters massively easier, depending on what kind of bugs you are facing. The continuous reinforcements on Movie Horror can get brutal quick, as it leaves you with no breathing room. I wish you luck surviving several lines of bugs with big armor pools that spit AOE (area of effect) acid in a row.
In combination with
Ironman, my first couple of attempts didn’t go well, since the new enemy tier around level 5 slaughtered my men. From what I noticed, there are no other big differences between the two settings, but it’s enough to indeed make it a
horror experience. Not having to care about death on Standard, makes the game in general much easier, a little too easy, actually. You still have the fatigue mechanic to contend with, but it’s nothing compared to losing your precious men forever. I find that the default setting is a bit too generous when it comes to penalties involving mission failures, as fatigue is the only punishment. Simultaneously, it’s a somewhat grindy experience, which to be fair can be seen as the prime punishment. I’m not convinced that this is the epitome of game-design, though.
The medic hesitates to go into another dark cave filled with ancient horrors. Very similar to my experience going shopping
Welcome to the grind
Now, permanent death makes it even more of a grind, since you have to retrain soldiers after every defeat. But that does not change the fact, the further you get into the game, the more intensive the grind becomes. Especially in combination with the fatigue, and the amount of classes you need to level-up, since you must at least run two squads so you can rest your men. This means running the same missions over and over, until you have reached a suitable level. I wouldn’t have too much of an issue with this, if the missions were randomized, like in
Darkest Dungeon or
X-com (games they are inspired by). They are not, however. You will quickly come to learn the layout by hand after a few runs, which makes the runs turn very formulaic. Also,
Darkest Dungeon has more gameplay mechanics that makes doing missions for experience more intricate. You have to pick where to go, you have to manage the inventory, decide when to use torches and food. If you have the DLCs, you get even more things to juggle during expeditions. It’s just more involved, while the repeatable tasks in
Tenebris: Terra Incognita are simple, requiring very little administration, mostly only combat. This makes the grind pretty noticeable if you fall behind the curve, or just need to pump up a few levels.
I don’t mind grinding, in a general sense, but I find there is too little to do
Tenebris: Terra Incognita currently, which makes the otherwise excellent gameplay suffer. Particularly, when you realize you will have to play the same old missions ten times more to stand a chance against new super evil creatures. However, the game might not actually be finished yet when it comes to this aspect. More might be planned, who knows?
We are long past medics here, I think we might need a mortician class
Alien battle
When it comes to the moment to moment gameplay, it’s as excellent as ever, with everything in my
demo critique still standing. It has great turn-based pacing, making for the most part every turn a deadly and fun endeavor. Well, except for when you severely out-level the enemies. Then you feel like Rico’s Roughnecks making it through hordes of bugs in record time, butchering every alien you see in the most brutal fashion you can think of. Or if the opposite, then you will be manifesting the disaster of the Klendathu invasion right before your eyes. Annihilating bugs might be cathartic from time to time, yet,
Tenebris: Terra Incognita is at its best when the skirmish is tough but manageable.
An aspect that I really enjoyed is the leveling system. It’s not something revolutionary mind-shattering, but it’s well-thought-out, and makes it exciting to level up. It reminds me of the early days of
World of Warcraft, before the all-consuming META was established. From a time when you had to experiment with the talent points, finding something suitable for your combat style. I’m getting that same feeling here. One of my best creations is a melee warrior, who instead of shooting stuff to bits, prefers to stab and slice his way to victory with accompanying equipment. Focusing on bleeding effects, emptying the aliens, from bosses to normal soldiers of blood, like a hungry vampire with an insatiable thirst for insect goo.
At a specific level, for example when reaching level 11, you get to pick a specialization. They come with their own fighting style and new talents. You still get to keep the old talents you have picked, it just starts over with a new tier of fun to explore. When my engineer Thomaso (yes, I picked that name for him) reached the next tier of unit, I could pick between becoming a better engineer, or some kind of machine-gunner with tech as support. Pretty damn cool, which makes it important to run multiple squads to try out all the different classes and variants.
Loot for everyone
The equipment you find, and buy, all comes in different rarities, with gray being standard, while blue or purple being top-tier. Yes, very mmo-like, but it’s a staple by now. These weapons and armors come with distinctive effects that extend certain abilities. So, while that new rifle you just found on a mangled corpse might have a higher damage stat, it’s not necessarily the best for your man going by your talent choices. It makes finding loot interesting, something to give some thought, instead of just right-clicking to equip the best possible. It extends the joy of inventory juggling between missions, as finding the best equipment to optimize the hell out of your men is always fun in a title like this. At times the equipment actually makes the man, and not the other way around.
I hope I get bonus pay for defeating this giant thing
Looking sci-fi
The visuals are top-notch, and so are the animations, as the combat feels and looks very lively when the chaos of battle hits the fan. The only sad thing is that the different equipment doesn’t show on your men. It’s a missed opportunity, that would have enchanted the visuals even further. It would also make the men stand out from each other when they are a part of the same class. However, it’s understandable that this is not to be, considering how much loot there is in the game. It would probably take a Herculean effort to add for a small indie-team. Yet, it would have been cool. Another big plus, that I think plays into the 80s and 90s aesthetics of sci-fi alien movies, is that the men look like grizzled veterans, and the chicks are smoking hot. It’s all grand, with the ladies being extra pleasing to the eyes!
Music and sound are also top-tier, especially the music, with its futuristic synth tunes. It fits the setting well, and is nice to listen to. There is no voice-acting. I don’t see this as an issue at all, seeing it’s not something that comes off as missing, going by the genre of the game. Overall, the presentation is excellent. Just take a look at the great background pictures in the gallery. Very immersive, that adds a lot to the atmosphere.
Oh boy, we have a boss-fight on our hands. Which means, I might actually need those diapers!
Conclusion
Despite my complaining about the grind,
Tenebris: Terra Incognita is a great game already, that only can be improved upon – on things to do between main missions, and some balance corrections. However, I must admit that some of my problems with the game are probably a personal skill issue. It’s not a totally uncommon occurrence! On the grind, it all depends on your level of tolerance for it. If you don’t like grinding, this will not be for you. Unless you play on the easiest difficulty setting, but who does that in a title like this? The potential for
Tenebris: Terra Incognita is huge, making me think we have a new
Darkest Dungeon (but in space) on our hands, if they can fix issues and expand on the gameplay. There is a lot of time for that, though, seeing as it will be in Early Access for at least a year.
I recommend
Tenebris: Terra Incognita, and I will give it a careful rating of four on the entertainment scale, with the hope that the grind will be lessened a bit in the future. Because the potential is real.
Thanks for reading.
