From Zenless Zone Zero to The First Descendant, we seem to be experiencing a free-to-play explosion. Despair, all you time-strapped adults, as your carefully crafted lack of pocket money offers no protection against the onslaught of games that want a piece of your evening or weekend. Today’s big release, Once Human, does at least include a giant school bus on monster legs, along with a less exciting but customizable bus that only has wheels. In this open-world survival shooter, you are a “Meta-Human” making your way through a landscape tainted by Stardust, which has warped the landscape and slowly drives you insane.
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You’ll get to chop down trees, build bases, and craft/obtain weapons of color-coded rarities. It’s a familiar mix, but I’m intrigued by the Control-esque and Ghostwire-esque monster and level designs in the trailers. I’ll be trying it out tonight. I’m hoping it’ll feel a bit like The Division 2’s Dark Zones but New Weird. Incidentally, developers Starry Studio have put together a pre-launch FAQ in advance of the likely inevitable bugs on launch day.
Let me recap: At launch, you’ll only get one character per account. Human will be cross-platform, but not on Steam accounts for now, “due to their inherent limitations”; the developers suggest using NetEase’s Loading Bay launcher instead, which I don’t have much experience with myself. The game also isn’t officially running on Steam Deck yet. Even more annoyingly, it doesn’t yet support controllers. “Our development team is actively working on changes to provide controller support as soon as possible,” the FAQ promises. “We expect to have this completed in August.”
Once Human will receive seasonal updates with new scenarios that offer different rules and environments, with players able to carry resources between seasons via their “personal domain” on Eternaland, which sounds like the name of a web3 Second Life rip-off but is ostensibly just a customizable base. There will be separate PvE and PvP servers at launch, with a small amount of PvE stuff exclusive to the PvE server.
Well, how about some system requirements! Below are what you’ll need to run Once Human at 1080p.
Minimum:
Operating system: Windows 10 (64-bit)
CPU: Intel Core i5-4460
Memory: 8 GB RAM
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti, 4GB or AMD Radeon R9 270
DirectX: Version 11
Available storage: 60 GB
Recommended:
Operating system: Windows 10 (64-bit)
CPU: Intel Core i7-7700
Memory: 16 GB RAM
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, 6GB or AMD Radeon RX 580
DirectX: Version 11
Available storage: 70 GB SSD
For 60 fps performance:
Operating system: Windows 10 (64-bit)
CPU: Intel Core i5-12400F
Memory: 16 GB RAM
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT
DirectX: Version 11
Available storage: 70 GB SSD
Sound a bit demanding? The developers are aware of it. “Once Human offers a high-quality audiovisual experience,” the FAQ explains. “This requires a lot of storage space for HD graphics, textures, sound effects, and map files. Additionally, as an MMO survival game, we aim to render large viewing distances so that players can see structures in the world as far away as possible. We are constantly working on optimizing the game for the best possible experience.”
In a similar vein, Once Human does not yet support DLSS “due to the ongoing optimization and integration of certain features.” It does support DirectX 12, but this may result in “a slight frame drop” compared to DirectX 11.
Starry Studio has also put together a number of basic tips to improve performance – specifically lowering the resolution, lowering the texture quality and special effects, and lowering the render quality. The developers further note that attempting to connect a controller – including “pedals and gear shifters for racing games, or joysticks for flying games” – may result in compatibility errors leading to crashes.
If you’re reading this in the distant future of a few hours from now, after Once Human goes live, I hope the advice has helped. Past experience with free-to-play launches suggests there will be plenty of gremlins to exorcise. And who knows, besides that? Once Human was the most popular demo at Steam Next Fest 2024. Again, there’s no shortage of competition in the realm of loot-looting F2P right now, but perhaps it’ll be one of this year’s breakout hits.