The mission was going well. My crew just made quick work of the pirates in the hallway. As the mercenary reloaded his lightning gun, my two enlisted soldiers moved toward the locked door and took defensive positions against anything that might be on the other side once we opened it up. The freshly-rescued slave, armed and armored thanks to a bit of looting, ran among the dead pirates to scoop up any credits they dropped when the died. After completing their tasks, the pair joined the two soldiers at the door. With a click, the door swooshed open and I sent them all to their doom.
Depth of Extinction is a new turn-based strategy from HOF Studios. In the game players navigate a small team of characters through corridors of Waterworld-esque structures. As the story goes, some sort of apocalyptic event took place and now humanity is down to just one government that’s working toward restoring peace in a world full of warring factions. It is up to the player to protect the government from collapse.
Players begin the game by selecting a mercenary unit to accompany their pair of soldiers on a mission following a pre-game mission that violently ends as soon as the player comes into the story. From that point on it’s up to the player to navigate an ever-growing roster of characters through the dangers and perils of a world covered in water, low on resources, and about to fall into complete anarchy.
Because Depth of Extinction is a turn-based RPG, players have plenty of time to plan out their maneuvers in anticipation of any enemies they may encounter. Between levels, players can choose what location in the region to navigate their submarine to next, as long as they have the fuel to do so. Low on supplies? Maybe stop by that warehouse. Have badly injured characters? A pit stop at the old hospital building might be a good idea. Random events can happen at each stop: from finding a completely empty building to finding it in the process of being looted by pirates. Because of that, making more stops than necessary can get risky, but if you’re lucky the extra loot you get from successful encounters can make the next levels easier.
If the encounter involves hostiles, the game shifts into its core gameplay mode. Upon encountering hostile characters, the team exits the submarine and steps out into the building they were just investigating. Turn-by-turn, the player moves the team through the facility in search of hostiles to clear out or an objective to activate or obtain. Anyone who is familiar with turn-based RPGs will have no trouble adapting to Depth of Extinction’s mechanics. Even if you’re new, the game provides a quick tutorial that shows you the basics without dragging the learning process out for very long.
With the dead bodies looted, guns locked-and-loaded, and defensive positions secured, I sent my mercenary ahead to open the door. With a swoosh the electronic doors parted and immediately two hostile characters were spotted. I panned over what I could see of the new room and made the tactical decision to rush the two enemies I spotted. The enemies at this facility had, so far, been easy to take down. My plan was to send my lightning-gun mercenary in first, followed closely by my shotgun-wielding soldier. Their high health pools would absorb the incoming fire while my two other long-range, high-damage characters could pick the enemies off from a safe distance.
As I used my mercenary’s second, and final, movement opportunity to put him in position to advance, another part of the room was revealed due to his new line of sight. An enemy type I had never seen before stood, ferocious-looking, in the corner of the room. Great. I stuck to my plan though and sent shotgun-guy into the room to draw fire and make space for the snipers in the back to get to work.
The big, new bad guy took one step forward and blasted my mercenary’s health in half. Another hostile took a shot at my soldier, missed, but the other hostile’s aim was better and he put a nice dent in my soldier’s health. Not great, but salvageable.
In hindsight, this is where I should have pulled back to a more defensive position, where all four of my characters could focus fire the big bad guy and then clean up the rest. I stubbornly stuck to my original plan, falsely believing that big guy got a lucky crital hit in on my mercenary.
The lightning gun and shotgun didn’t do much against this no-nonsense enemy. His next shot proved that his first was not pure luck. As the dead body of my mercenary fell to the floor, and my snipers continued to miss their shots, I had the sinking feeling that this was going to end badly.
A few turns later it was over. My entire crew was wiped out. One bad strategic decision doomed the entire mission. I thought about my mistakes for a moment, then, with the names of the fallen already forgotten, I reset the game and began with a new crew of soldiers I’d undoubtedly get killed in the near future.
Depth of Extinction is out now for PC, Mac, and Linux.
A retail key of the game was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this article.
