Remains

Genre: First-Person Survival Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

Remains is a First-Person Survival Adventure game released on Nintendo Switch in 2023, with the game currently in early access on PC. In this game, players take the role of an astronaut on a craft in orbit of Earth when disaster strikes, shattering their spacecraft and leaving them adrift in orbit amidst a field of debris. Players must collect debris both to look after their own bodily needs as well as to gradually rebuild a working spacecraft.

This game’s premise strikes me as being very reminiscent of the Sandra Bullock film Gravity, and I think the easiest way to describe this game overall would be by saying this is Gravity meets Subnautica, minus Subnautica’s horror elements. It’s just you alone in the void of space, collecting debris to try to craft and build back some semblance of a ship.

I’ve gotta’ be honest, I’m not normally a fan of Survival Adventure games. I think my issue with this genre normally is that I don’t really care for games having a ticking countdown to my doom that I always need to be mindful of, something Survival Adventure games have in abundance. It leaves me on edge, and I do not care for nerve-wracking experiences like that.

Oddly though, I don’t get that feeling from Remains, and quite the contrary I find this to be a mostly calming, almost contemplative experience. It’s not that this game doesn’t require you to keep an eye on your food and oxygen readouts – you definitely do. But something about the floating debris constantly being delivered your way makes it seem like you’re not struggling with problems of scarcity and always trying to scrape by what you need to survive. Rather, you get the feeling you’re among a wealth of riches, and you only need to parse through all of it to find what you’re looking for at any given time.

Much as with other games in this genre, and again I feel like there are particularly similarities to Subnautica, players will have to collect resources to build tools, structures, and machines, with these structures gradually enabling the player to do more and more, learning new recipes over time. The ship itself is one players will be able to piece together panel by panel, creating the ship the way they want it to be built.

A word of warning: Progress in this game is slow-going, and I think that some will be turned off by this slow progression, though the abundant resources do make it feel like you’re always constantly working toward your goals. However, it doesn’t help that players have an absolutely pathetic inventory size, meaning you’ll constantly be heading out and coming back to fill up containers you’ve built.

I also need to criticize this game’s somewhat confusing menus. I had to go through a bit of trial and error to figure out just how everything here works. In some cases, I still don’t quite understand how it’s supposed to work. At one point, you build an extremely important machine called a Recycler, but try as I might I could not find any way to work it even after supplying it power and collecting the raw materials it needed. I was only ever able to figure out how to get the contraption to work using the Nintendo Switch’s touchscreen – I still can’t get the thing to work using standard gamepad controls.

The presentation here is good. The Earth and space themselves don’t look particularly impressive, and individual 3D objects look decent but not exceptional. However, staring at the massive field of debris all moving independently through space can be quite an impressive sight, especially when you can pick out any object and fly to it. The game’s visuals are backed by a relaxed synthesized soundtrack, which is befitting the game’s surprisingly relaxing tone.

It still feels weird for me to describe a Survival Adventure as “relaxing”, but more than anything I feel like this is what Remains does well. Not exactly the sort of emotion one tends to associate with floating adrift through the lethal void of space, desperately searching for resources needed to survive. The game’s slow pace, limited inventory, and confusing menus may put off some players, and the control issues are extremely worrisome. But if you can tolerate these issues, I think you’ll find this to be an excellent entry in this genre, well worth checking out.

tl;dr – Remains is a First-Person Survival Adventure where players take the role of an astronaut adrift in space amidst a field of debris they must collect to rebuild a working spacecraft and keep themselves alive. Despite the severe theme, Remains is a surprisingly relaxing experience thanks to the abundant resources. While I love a lot about this game, it definitely has its problems – The pacing here is pretty slow, the limited inventory is frustrating, the menus are too confusing, and the controls have serious issues. However, if you can tolerate these flaws, I think you’ll find this game to be a delight, well worth checking out for fans of the genre, and even those like me who normally find this genre too stressful.

Grade: C+

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