Nova Antarctica Review — Cold and Alone

Nova Antarctica is an interesting, mixed bag of a game, one that defied my expectations multiple times throughout my run. This worked both for and against the game’s favor, creating a title that was truly a unique and unexpected mix of genre mechanics while also being something of a chore to play at times. To say that Nova Antarctica has its fair share of strengths and weaknesses in equal measure feels almost like an understatement; the good and the bad come together to create what I can only call an amateurish first game for a new developer, but an impressive one, all things considered. It is one, however, that probably could have used a bit more to it before releasing.

Nova Antarctica sends players on an exploration of the Antarctic continent, far in the future and with limited supplies. Your goal is to make it to the South Pole, fighting against vicious winter storms, strange infectious fauna, and your own body’s limitations along the way.

Right away, I felt as though Nova Antarctica was something of a unique mixture of genres: a sort of platforming-crafting-survival game. Rather than most games in the second half of that description, you’re not really building a central base, harvesting food, and seeing how long you can survive the harsh environment. Instead, you’re forever pushing forward, moving through multiple, straight-ahead levels rather than interacting with an open world. These levels are designed with platforming obstacles and a lot of materials spread about for the player to interact with, either gathering supplies or learning new crafting recipes as they do so.

Crafting in Nova Antarctica is a core mechanic used in three ways: to navigate the game’s platforming segments, which are designed in such a way that the player must build the correct objects to scale; to survive the effects of the environment by means of temporary shelters from the wind and cold; and to keep your energy up with provisions.

Therefore, rather than a long-term survival game, Nova Antarctica is something like a platforming adventure where the obstacles are twofold: actual physical obstacles like cliffs and pitfalls, and your basic needs.

Something you will notice after a little bit of time in Nova Antarctica is that the game can feel pretty unforgiving, despite the overall cutesy appearance. Essentially, your biggest obstacles are your energy and the lack of foresight to plan ahead. If you don’t have the necessary means to refill your energy bar, a persistent stat that drains on most actions and doesn’t refill naturally over time, you can easily find yourself stuck, unable to jump over an obstacle, and thus soft-losing the game. If you pass by materials you might need later, tough luck; transitioning to the next level loses those materials forever. Therefore, players must make a conscious effort to explore each level and gather all they can while also being conscious of how much energy they’re spending in the process.

It’s an interesting gameplay loop, and when paired with Nova Antarctica‘s pleasant, cute aesthetic and relaxing vibe (which weirdly doesn’t clash with the challenging-at-times gameplay), it creates something really unique. You can certainly find yourself lost within the game’s subtle, wordless storytelling, especially during the cutscenes.

There are, however, areas of the game that feel weaker.

Nova Antarctica is full of small, tiny criticisms that take away from the gameplay, all of which hint at this being a game developed by newer game devs. I don’t know if this is true for certain, but that’s definitely how it feels.

It’s never any one thing that greatly subtracts from the experience, but the sum of its parts: gameplay can feel really slow due to the character’s innate low movement speed and the at times punishing stamina or energy bar. There’s a lack of sound or visual effects when picking up objects that makes the process feel kind of dull and lifeless. The UI is barren, missing vital tooltips that remind you of important keybinds and object information, which is especially important when it comes to the craftable restorative items; you’d think color coordination would be helpful here, but the stamina goodies are orange, not green like I would have expected. The game’s animations are also stiff and generic, and there’s a general lack of ambience, at least to my ear.

It wasn’t uncommon for me to get the feeling that I was alone in a desolate place, but more in the sense of being trapped in an empty room, than the Antarctic loneliness the game wants to convey.

Not only this, but I found the crafting system to be somewhat unintuitive at times. Certain shelters you would expect to protect you from the cold in fact do not do so, and indeed, the whole blizzard-sheltering mechanic feels a bit inconsistent. While it is a fun survival mechanic, a lot of times it can just feel like stalling for time in its execution, forcing you to just sit there and wait for the cold to pass in your little shelter, assuming you built the right kind.

I don’t think sitting here and listing off every small, minute issue I found with the game would be very helpful, nor would it in the long run really sway you, the reader, more than simply stating that the game feels charmingly amateurish and at times a little bit unpolished.

For some, this might put you off from the experience, as a lot of little problems can make the game feel awkward to play at times. However, I can’t say that it’s serious enough to really ruin the experience; I can certainly see Nova Antarctica having a dedicated fanbase for those who can get past its imperfections. For me personally, however, I think the game could have used some more time being polished, and I just can’t shake a feeling of incompleteness when I play.

Try Hard Guides was provided a Steam code for this PC review of Nova Antarctica. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Nova Antarctica is available on Steam.