Lifeless Planet is a sort of a dream game for me. It is a sci-fi game where exploration and
discovery is the focus, not shooting everything that moves. It has a great story without cutscenes. Is thrilling without combat. And features extremely clever and satisfying
exploration of an alien world unlike any other game on Xbox One. I love it.
See our full review.Game Details
- Publisher: Stage 2 Studios
- Developer: Stage 2 Studios
- ESRB Rating: “T” for Teen
- Genre: Adventure
- Pros: Nice presentation; great story; awesome exploration; no combat; lots of surprises
- Cons: Platforming is so-so; easy puzzles
- MSRP: $20
Lifeless Planet is the story of an astronaut that crash
lands on a distant alien planet. When
he left Earth this planet was lush and green, but when he arrives more than
20-years later the planet is dead and barren.
Inexplicably, he isn’t the first human to set foot on the planet like he
expected to be, either – there is an abandoned Russian colony there
already. He also finds he isn’t
entirely alone as a mysterious woman suddenly appears to lead him through
surprising dangers lurking just below the surface. The rest of the game is spent finding out what happened to the
planet, where the Russians went, and trying to figure out how to get back home.
Lifeless Planet is a third-person adventure game that is
entirely focused on the thrill of exploration.
You walk around and look at stuff, solve some puzzles, find documents
and audio logs to fill out the story, and that’s it. There are no weapons, but there aren’t any enemies to fight
anyway. The alien world seems bland at
first, but there are dusty plains, canyons, a dead forest, a manmade dam, underground
labs, and much more. While there aren’t
enemies to fight, there are dangerous things in the world, and your encounters
with them are very thrilling. The game
goes pretty crazy by the end, too, with some truly out of this world events
happening, so don’t be put off by the seemingly boring first few minutes. Lifeless Planet really, really pays off by
the end.
What I like best about Lifeless Planet is how intuitive it
is to play. You don’t have a map or
compass pointing you in the right direction, but you always know exactly where
to go. There is always something that
catches your eye like a glint of metal or funny looking mountain or an alien
structure on the horizon, so that’s where you go. The game is deliciously un-videogame-y in that it doesn’t baby
you along and it doesn’t tell you what to do, but it also doesn’t shoehorn a
clunky combat system into a game that didn’t need it. Lifeless Planet’s reward is in the story and in the exploration
itself and that is very rare these days.
The gameplay is extremely simple and consists only of
exploration and puzzle solving. Your
space suit has a simple propulsion system that you use to hop along and do some
simple platform jumping, though the platforming isn’t particularly
special. The puzzles, actually, aren’t
particularly memorable either. The
solutions to puzzles are always right in the same area, and aside from one or
two that require a minute of critical thinking to figure out, aren’t too
difficult. Really, the actual gameplay
in Lifeless Planet is kind of mediocre.
But what makes it stand out is that the gameplay isn’t the focus
here. You’ll be so engrossed in the
story and world itself that the “OK” gameplay isn’t a problem. You just desperately want to keep pushing
forward to see what comes next, and that is awesome.
The presentation here won’t exactly wow you, but it is still
very effective. The textures are simple
and the world seems barren and lifeless, but there is still a beauty here
because the game is simple. It isn’t
all just red and brown nothingness, either.
The lighting engine is fantastic and the real time reflections of the
world on the astronaut’s helmet are awesome.
I also love that there is no UI cluttering up the screen. Sound is mostly subdued and limited to environmental
sounds, but when the music picks up at key moments it is always perfect.
Lifeless Planet seems bland and boring on the surface,
but just like the planet you’re exploring, there’s more to it than it lets on
initially. Of course, if you have a
burning desire to explore an alien planet that has been with you since you were
a kid like I do, you won’t find it boring at all. The exploration is simply amazing and satisfying here. Remember walking out of the vault in Fallout
3 for the first time and how that felt?
Lifeless Planet is a game with 5-hours of exactly those sort of moments
back to back to back to back. Lifeless
Planet is an awesome and memorable experience that I can’t recommend highly
enough. Buy it. 
Disclosure: A review code was provided by the publisher.
