Krater - Review @ Rock Paper Shotgun

Over at Rock Paper Shotgun we can read what Jim Rossignol thinks about Krater, which isn't too positive.

The injury and death system is ultimately more about increasing workload, rather than providing excitement through threat. This is an important point, and at the heart of my confusion with Krater. The reason permanent death in games is thrilling is because of connection to and investment in a character, which is not found here. You either have stuff you need and care about because you don’t want to lose it (Day Z) or you’ve put time and money into fitting out something expensive (Eve). But in Krater I found it hard to care about what I was putting together. Partly that’s because of a lack of player’s own investment – there’s no process of character creation or customisation beyond the uninteresting weapons they are carrying (you do not even name them) – but also because however well you might intend to play Krater, you are forced to train up new characters to continue the game, no matter your skill with the characters you began with. Yes, the characters you start with reach a level cap and must be discarded. Not that the game bothers to explain that, they just stop getting XP and you have to notice that it says “level 5/5” in the character screen. That means hiring someone who can take you from 0-10, and later up to 15.

That’s right: characters run out of the ability to progress. There seems to be no reason for this, other than to increasing the amount of time spent grinding for cash and equipment with replacement characters.