Last Oasis Creative Directors Admits ‘The Game Sucks’ As Season 5 Beta Begins

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“Last Oasis sucks,” admitted the game’s own Creative Director, Florian Hoffreither, in the latest developer blog from Donkey Crew. That’s in fact the actual title of the actual blog post.

Hoffreither acknowledged that he wasn’t having fun when playing the game for a long time compared to other survival MMOs. “I should know - I designed it. And more than that, I played it – extensively,” he said. It was largely the reason why they ultimately decided to redo the entire game from scratch come Season 5 which they dubbed, the LOverhaul.

“After Season 4 it finally hit me. I’ve been on a wild goose chase. I’ve been trying to chase down the reason why players don’t have fun in LO,” he continued. “This is a fruitless exercise until I can answer why I am not having fun. Suddenly, the question was no longer ‘What can I do to fix LO.’ The question became ‘If I were to make LO from scratch, what would I do.’ And the answer to that question is Season 5.”

Donkey Crew has been touting the game-changing season for a few months now and has just launched a separate beta branch on Steam to test out the upcoming changes. As previously noted, Season 5 will introduce a complete revamp of the game’s mechanics, from removing its marquee Scorch mechanic to changing how progression and building works and making combat more of a brutal PvE affair instead of a full-blown PvP gank fest.

“The game no longer holds your hands - at all. No protected slots, no tutorial, no linear missions that gently guide you through progression,” said Hoffreither. “Just you and a sandbox full of tools and deadly dangers, and if you don’t think ahead, the world will absolutely punish you.”

On the plus side, the changes should make the whole gameplay experience infinitely more rewarding. “You will have to carve out victory after victory, and each defeat will be a lesson in what you can do better,” he added. “Every time you manage to come back to your base with some precious loot you feel glorious. Every time your greed gets the better of you, and you bite off a bit more than you can chew, the lesson will be painful but deserved. The game has a lot to explore, and many options become available as you learn the mechanics better.”

That being said, the team is looking to establish a middle ground between making the game challenging and making players ragequit out of frustration. That’s what the beta test is for. Here’s how to access the new beta branch:

  • Right click Last Oasis on Steam
  • Select Properties > Betas
  • Choose betabranch from the list.

“For the next 2 days we’ll be keeping servers up to gather data about the experience, then turn it off again so we can evaluate the result in peace,” Hoffreither said. “A word of advice - if you play it like you used to play LO, you will fail. Ironically, new players seem to fare better than the seasoned ones initially, because the experience is so vastly different. Have an open mind, enjoy, and let me know what you think of this direction.”