Some battle royales win you over with map size, and some win you over with ideas: Darwin Project is on the second team. On July 4, 2018, Canada’s Scavengers Studio announced that the game was becoming free on Xbox One. In the developer’s words on Twitter, loosely translated: “Starting today, anyone can play Darwin Project, our highly interactive, survival-packed battle royale, for free! No time limit or excluded modes.”
The change made the console version match the PC one, which was already free in early access. And those who had paid for the game on Xbox One were not left at a loss: they received a Founder’s Pack with two sets of legendary outfits, three legendary axes and three legendary bows, a complete collection of jumpsuits and ten fan gifts.
What stands out is the game’s design. Instead of a hundred people parachuting in, Darwin Project puts ten prisoners in a post-apocalyptic arena in the northern Canadian Rockies, in a reality show of the future. The cold is a real enemy: you have to gather resources to craft weapons, armor and heat sources, and an axe and a bow do much of the work. A nice detail: an 11th participant can take on the role of Show Director, who stays outside the arena and tweaks the match rules in real time, closing areas, sending events and helping or hindering the competitors. You can see the care in turning the spectator into part of the game.
What came next
Darwin Project had its full release on January 14, 2020, on Steam, PS4 and Xbox One, with a 74 Metacritic average for the PC version. The game’s life, however, was short: active development ended on May 13, 2020, and by the end of that year the servers worked only in the Central Europe and eastern United States regions. What remained was the memory of a small, creative battle royale that bet on the spectator as a centerpiece.
Source: Scavengers Studio.
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