A Long Survive Early Access Review: A Dull Alien Shooter Saved By Co-op

A Long Survive is now available on PC VR, after a brief delay. But its wave-based alien bug shooting gameplay leaves much to be desired.

It was Halo game designer Jamie Griesemer who once said, “If you can get 30 seconds of fun, you can pretty much stretch that out to be an entire game.” This principle is particularly true for certain virtual reality games. For a medium where breaks need to be taken often, sprawling 30-hour RPGs are rare. In their absence, match-based VR games have proliferated.

Shooters like Ghosts of Tabor, Breachers, and more recently Forefront succeed thanks to their nimble play sessions that don’t require much prep before jumping in. Looking at it from that perspective, A Long Survive should be a surefire hit for developer Friendly Fire Studios. The truth is that its repetitive design ensures it is exclusively enjoyable with friends, and no more.

Granted, A Long Survive is described as a “cooperative virtual reality horde survival and base-defense game.” This means that it is made from the ground up with online multiplayer in mind, but even then, it falls flat because of the lack of customization. Working towards any kind of goal takes so much longer than any game of its kind should. Many of my issues can be derived from its cookie-cutter missions, snail-paced progression, and uninspired sci-fi setting. So let's start there.

As one of four possible characters, you are a soldier aboard the SCL Caronte spaceship. Working for the dully named Space Corp, your job is to eliminate wave after wave of alien bugs. Stop me if you've heard this one before. It is not that the paper-thin lore isn't justified enough to be an excuse to shoot some deadly critters. It could have at least invented some spicy, world-ending catastrophe to make players feel like they are working towards something tangible. The hostile insects themselves getting stuck on the level is not a good look either.

From your ship working as a lobby, you can access a shooting gallery, invite or join other players, and launch missions. What is baffling from the get-go is that once the tutorial is done, the missions on offer are all too massive to commit to. While the tutorial has ten waves of bugs to blast through, the main modes to choose from are either a 20-wave match, a 50-wave match—which the game estimates takes about two hours—or a team deathmatch mode. There is no in-between. A way to tweak the number of waves, limit the number of bots and players in a match, or change to special rules a la 007: GoldenEye’s Golden Gun mode would spruce things up.

A Long Survive's saving grace is its moment-to-moment gameplay. Once on the field of its four available areas (and a fifth one for PvP), the goal is simple: survive. As expected, each round increases the number of bugs that need to be put down. A base of operations called the Nexus, a movable supercomputer, allows players to buy a series of useful items in combat. If it is destroyed, it is game over. From barricades to energy field barriers and mines, it is important to secure the base defenses at every corner.

With every enemy killed, players gain points to spend on this portable store. Managing resources is critical because the currency is divided between personal and team points. Team points can be used to buy a general good that benefits all, like the weapon maker. To buy a weapon from said machine, personal credits will be spent. The weapon designs themselves are slick, the manual reloading is logical for VR, and the realism of holding down bigger weapons with both hands due to the recoil is commendable. If only the sound effects felt impactful.

Because the waves are as predictable as they sound—more and bigger bugs, the occasional sub-boss—it helps that little details go a long way to add variety. For example, three different weapon types are sold: ballistic, energy, and explosives. Shotguns, SMGs, and revolvers are at a moment’s notice. Energy weapons, like the railgun, can only be used after activating “crystal collectors” spawning on random rounds. These pylons need to be filled up by standing close to them when they appear. Modifiers before embarking on each expedition can make the mission more difficult, such as making your character move slower. There is no benefit to toggling these on.

While I only played with one friend and bots in my experience, I must imagine that recruiting four other friends for a full-blown two-hour session is a fun time. Strategizing on the go and adapting to the near-impossible odds as the waves overwhelm the crew is enjoyable. Each of the four characters has certain skills, like the engineer using energy weapons whenever they want or the healer curing others. What did puzzle me is the glacial pace of the progression system to unlock abilities. After 5 hours, I was just level 3. The game expects you to grind up to level 55. You do the math.

The developers at Friendly Fire Studios have reiterated that this is an Early Access release. New game modes, characters, and maps are planned. Most of all, they fundamentally express that community suggestions are at the pillar of their future content. I would not exactly call the game’s foundation strong, but to have a small studio willing to adapt is worth mentioning.

A Long Survive - Early Access Verdict

In a sea of exciting VR shooters, I am not sure where A Long Survive lands. Playing with friends is always a good time, but what game isn’t? The later bug waves do lend themselves to hectic moments of chaos, so a dedicated group of players might be willing to look for that thrill time and time again. Others may just look elsewhere.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines. As an early access release, this review is unscored.