From Zenless Zone Zero to The First Descendant, it seems like we’re experiencing an explosion of free-to-play. Desperation, you time-strapped adults, because your carefully engineered lack of pocket money offers no protection against the onslaught of games that want a chunk of your evening or weekend. Today’s big release, Once Human, at least includes a giant school bus on monstrous legs, along with a less exciting but adaptable van that only has wheels. In this open world survival shooter, you are a “Metahuman” making your way through a landscape corrupted by Stardust, which has warped the landscape and is slowly driving you insane.
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You’ll be able to cut trees, build bases, and craft/obtain rarity color-coded weapons. It’s a familiar combination, but I’m intrigued by the Control-esque and Ghostwire touches adjacent to the monster and level design in the trailers. I’ll try the game tonight. I’m hoping it’ll be a bit like The Division 2’s Dark Zones, but New Weird. On that note, developers Starry Studio have made a launch FAQ ahead of the likely inevitable launch day bugs.
Let me wrap it up for you: you only get one token per account at launch. Once Human is cross-platform, but not on Steam accounts at the moment, “due to their inherent limitations”; the developers suggest using the NetEase bootloader instead, which I don’t have much experience with. The game is also not officially running on Steam Deck right now. Even more annoying is that it still doesn’t support controllers either. “Our development team is actively working on changes to bring controller support as soon as possible,” promises the FAQ. “We expect to complete this by August.”
Once Human will receive seasonal updates with new scenarios offering different rules and environments, with players able to transfer resources between seasons via their “personal domain” in Eternaland, which sounds like a web3 Second Life rip-off name, but looks like just a customizable base . There will be separate PvE and PvP servers at launch, with a small amount of PvE stuff exclusive to the PvE server.
Now how about some system requirements! Below is obviously what you need to run Once Human at 1080p.
minimum:
OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
Processor: Intel Core i5-4460
RAM: 8GB RAM
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti, 4 GB or AMD Radeon R9 270
DirectX: Version 11
Available storage: 60 GB
It is recommended:
OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
Processor: Intel Core i7-7700
RAM: 16GB RAM
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, 6 GB or AMD Radeon RX 580
DirectX: Version 11
Available storage: 70 GB SSD
For 60 fps performance:
OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
Processor: Intel Core i5-12400F
RAM: 16GB RAM
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT
DirectX: Version 11
Available storage: 70 GB SSD
Sound a bit demanding? The developers are aware. “Once Human offers a high-quality audiovisual experience,” explains the FAQ. “This requires a large amount of storage space for HD images, textures, sound effects and map files. Also, as a survival MMO game, we aim to depict large viewing distances so that players can see the structures in the world as far away as possible. We are constantly working to optimize the game for the best possible experience.”
On a similar note, Once Human does not yet support DLSS “due to ongoing optimization and integration of certain features.” It supports DirectX 12, but this may cause “slight frame drops” compared to DirectX 11.
Starry Studio has also put together some basic tips for improving performance – specifically, lowering resolution, lowering texture and special effects quality, and lowering rendering quality. The developers also note that if you try to plug in a controller — including “pedals and gear controls for driving games or joysticks for flying games” — there may be compatibility errors that lead to crashes.
If you’re reading this in the distant future a few hours after Once Human goes live, I hope the advice helped. Past experience with free-to-play games suggests there will be plenty of gremlins to iron out. And beyond that, who knows? Once Human was the most popular demo during Steam Next Fest 2024. Again, there’s no shortage of competition in the loot-laden realm of F2P right now, but perhaps this will be another breakout hit of the year.
