In today's cluttered last-man-standing genre, a lot of BR's look and play the same. Parachute down on a large map, procure weapons (usually firearms), and pick off opponents while pressured into a progressively smaller area. Darwin decided to do something others have not: Fuse a survival game into a king of the hill combat mold. And to a degree, it actually works.

Up to 10 players are teleported into a randomly generated map. The map itself is a shuffle of preset "biomes," all mid-winter, but with notable differences: A central frozen lake, scattered treehouses, a futuristic city, a rustic town with a central chapel, a shipping yard, and a molten canyon complete with expansive piping, to name a few. As combatants navigate these, they hunt down chests, chop down trees, harvest darwinium (energy resource), and the occasional robo-deer for special items and healing. Using gathered resources, you can craft arrows, a couple traps, and class-specific upgrades to boost your offensive, defensive, or tactical abilities.

It's a lot to take in at first, but with practice, becomes second nature. Darwin is a high skill ceiling game for those who dare to master it, giving you all the tools to pull of incredible trickshots with a bow, intense melee axe fights, or satisfying 4D chess plays of out-maneuvering opponents into hidden, preset traps. There are many montages on youtube that showcase Darwin at its peak, and indeed, it's mesmerizing. Here's just one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnxTpxBVOts

During its early days, Darwin was not built on classes, but rather, customization. You could directly upgrade and build any combination of powers you pleased, limited only by resources and the time to craft them. On launch, they removed this freedom and narrowed your abilities into three classes: Jetpack, Grapple Hook, Seeker Drone. Jetpack focuses on verticality / aerial bow use / speed, Grapple on melee / shields / 1v1, Seeker on tracking / trapping / invisibility. Within your class selection your access to abilities is limited, so you need to make the most of your strengths. Ultimately, though, every class comes down to quick reflexes and good aim.

Darwin's survival element has you juggle a constant pressure against cold, which, if ignored, will steadily deplete your HP akin to a poison effect. To combat this, you craft fires that warm you up, but give away your position to the enemy by a stage-wide visible smoke signal. You can put these out early by crafting snowballs, or use them strategically to throw off opponents. Speaking of snowballs, you can lob these at opponents to lower their cold resistance and possibly seal a battle of attrition if they can't warm up.

Last but not least, the game had a novel idea of tasking one spectator player as a show director, granting the power to spice things up to their whims. These had access to "cards" (randomly selected events) including things like resource gifts, buffs, zone closure, and even a nuke, forcing players to evacuate or risk KO by countdown. It featured a twitch integration to let the audience vote and grant bonus XP to the most entertaining participants.

So why is the game in maintenance mode, then? As per usual, my thoughts:

1. Insufficient marketing and platform accessibility - Before it went F2P, Darwin was a pay to play title, which likely kept potential players at bay (the early access dilemma). Eventually, the game extended to other platforms, but had limitations: It was never available on Switch, and for Xbox players, Live was required. Though it utilized Twitch and picked up some streamers, where else was it advertised? If the intended market was competitive, where were the tournaments and the big prizes? There were some, but I can't recall hearing about them.

2. Catering to the wrong audience - Unlike its cartoonish appearance, Darwin is no casual game. If you didn't already, watch the linked video above to get a sense for how fast combat can be... significant precision and foresight are needed to land your shots, deflect attacks, or lure opponents into traps. I'm not sure that Darwin pulled enough of the esports type, which the game seems made for. When streamers picked up the game, some rose to the challenge and improved their skill. But others, soured by continuous losses, became detractors, and their complaints shaped content changes. It's a catch-22 of wanting a competitive audience but catering your game to players who weren't as dedicated, and the end result was alienating both experienced alpha testers (who didn't like the class system) and the newcomers getting stomped by pros in the full release, who may not have stuck around long enough. Speaking of which, some casuals didn't even make it past the survival mechanics to manage their cold meters. They wanted faster games.

3. Lack of incentives, removing core features - Touched on above, not a lot of early adopters appreciated losing the full crafting wheel and being pigeonholed into classes. Battlepass came late in the life cycle, finally giving players something to strive for with tasks to perform. And not to be forgotten, duos - party with a friend - was a defining draw to the game, and it was taken out on release (in favor of ranked free for all). Some people only want to play with pals, and that forced these out altogether.

Today, you can still experience vanilla Darwin under custom matches - I suggest you do so - to see what could have been. If you enjoy it, search the forums for discord links to find premades and get a real game going. You can gamble on midweek and weekend randoms but true challengers all go customs.

Achievement Hunters: Typical grind achievements. Very time consuming... there is no consistent way to get XP outside of 1 daily win + top 3 finish. You can farm with a friend or use an idle account. Must be done in public matchmaking, customs don't count. Level 50 is easily a 3 month or so commitment.

And caution about the legendary weapon skin. It costs 1500 ramen which you will earn as you grind levels and perform daily tasks. You could get lucky and find one in a level up crate, but if not, be sure NOT TO BUY LEGEND CLOTHING. My mistake cost me another month of grind.

~50-100 hrs to 100% ?

[h3]Darwin Project is a Battle Royale unlike any other, with a strong Survival element (cold management) + mid-match resource collection and crafting that still has no equal today--notably, the director's chair, that lets one observer help or hinder combatants. For a number of reasons discussed below, the game has seen a drastic decline in playerbase, but not because it's bad - it took big risks and made polarizing decisions. You can still enjoy it if you search for private customs via discord.[/h3] In today's cluttered last-man-standing genre, a lot of BR's look and play the same. Parachute down on a large map, procure weapons (usually firearms), and pick off opponents while pressured into a progressively smaller area. Darwin decided to do something others have not: Fuse a survival game into a king of the hill combat mold. And to a degree, it actually works. Up to 10 players are teleported into a randomly generated map. The map itself is a shuffle of preset "biomes," all mid-winter, but with notable differences: A central frozen lake, scattered treehouses, a futuristic city, a rustic town with a central chapel, a shipping yard, and a molten canyon complete with expansive piping, to name a few. As combatants navigate these, they hunt down chests, chop down trees, harvest darwinium (energy resource), and the occasional robo-deer for special items and healing. Using gathered resources, you can craft arrows, a couple traps, and class-specific upgrades to boost your offensive, defensive, or tactical abilities. It's a lot to take in at first, but with practice, becomes second nature. Darwin is a high skill ceiling game for those who dare to master it, giving you all the tools to pull of incredible trickshots with a bow, intense melee axe fights, or satisfying 4D chess plays of out-maneuvering opponents into hidden, preset traps. There are many montages on youtube that showcase Darwin at its peak, and indeed, it's mesmerizing. Here's just one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnxTpxBVOts During its early days, Darwin was not built on classes, but rather, customization. You could directly upgrade and build any combination of powers you pleased, limited only by resources and the time to craft them. On launch, they removed this freedom and narrowed your abilities into three classes: Jetpack, Grapple Hook, Seeker Drone. Jetpack focuses on verticality / aerial bow use / speed, Grapple on melee / shields / 1v1, Seeker on tracking / trapping / invisibility. Within your class selection your access to abilities is limited, so you need to make the most of your strengths. Ultimately, though, every class comes down to quick reflexes and good aim. Darwin's survival element has you juggle a constant pressure against cold, which, if ignored, will steadily deplete your HP akin to a poison effect. To combat this, you craft fires that warm you up, but give away your position to the enemy by a stage-wide visible smoke signal. You can put these out early by crafting snowballs, or use them strategically to throw off opponents. Speaking of snowballs, you can lob these at opponents to lower their cold resistance and possibly seal a battle of attrition if they can't warm up. Last but not least, the game had a novel idea of tasking one spectator player as a show director, granting the power to spice things up to their whims. These had access to "cards" (randomly selected events) including things like resource gifts, buffs, zone closure, and even a nuke, forcing players to evacuate or risk KO by countdown. It featured a twitch integration to let the audience vote and grant bonus XP to the most entertaining participants. So why is the game in maintenance mode, then? As per usual, my thoughts: [b]1. Insufficient marketing and platform accessibility[/b] - Before it went F2P, Darwin was a pay to play title, which likely kept potential players at bay (the early access dilemma). Eventually, the game extended to other platforms, but had limitations: It was never available on Switch, and for Xbox players, Live was required. Though it utilized Twitch and picked up some streamers, where else was it advertised? If the intended market was competitive, where were the tournaments and the big prizes? There were some, but I can't recall hearing about them. [b]2. Catering to the wrong audience[/b] - Unlike its cartoonish appearance, Darwin is no casual game. If you didn't already, watch the linked video above to get a sense for how fast combat can be... significant precision and foresight are needed to land your shots, deflect attacks, or lure opponents into traps. I'm not sure that Darwin pulled enough of the esports type, which the game seems made for. When streamers picked up the game, some rose to the challenge and improved their skill. But others, soured by continuous losses, became detractors, and their complaints shaped content changes. It's a catch-22 of wanting a competitive audience but catering your game to players who weren't as dedicated, and the end result was alienating both experienced alpha testers (who didn't like the class system) and the newcomers getting stomped by pros in the full release, who may not have stuck around long enough. Speaking of which, some casuals didn't even make it past the survival mechanics to manage their cold meters. They wanted faster games. [b]3. Lack of incentives, removing core features[/b] - Touched on above, not a lot of early adopters appreciated losing the full crafting wheel and being pigeonholed into classes. Battlepass came late in the life cycle, finally giving players something to strive for with tasks to perform. And not to be forgotten, duos - party with a friend - was a defining draw to the game, and it was taken out on release (in favor of ranked free for all). Some people only want to play with pals, and that forced these out altogether. Today, you can still experience vanilla Darwin under custom matches - I suggest you do so - to see what could have been. If you enjoy it, search the forums for discord links to find premades and get a real game going. You can gamble on midweek and weekend randoms but true challengers all go customs. [u]Achievement Hunters[/u]: Typical grind achievements. Very time consuming... there is no consistent way to get XP outside of 1 daily win + top 3 finish. You can farm with a friend or use an idle account. Must be done in public matchmaking, customs don't count. Level 50 is easily a 3 month or so commitment. And caution about the legendary weapon skin. It costs 1500 ramen which you will earn as you grind levels and perform daily tasks. You could get lucky and find one in a level up crate, but if not, be sure NOT TO BUY LEGEND CLOTHING. My mistake cost me another month of grind. ~50-100 hrs to 100% ?