Survival: Fountain of Youth Preview for Steam Early Access

Survival: Fountain of Youth, by developer Odinsoft Inc. and publishers Twin Sails Interactive and CE-Asia, is an open world survival game based on historical events surrounding the original expedition to discover the Fountain of Youth. You play as a member of Juan Ponce de Leon’s expedition to mysterious islands that legends say may contain the Fountain of Youth. During the expedition your ship crashes and is destroyed, tossing you and separating you from your crew. You wash up on the shore of one of the islands and now must survive on your own and attempt to uncover the secrets of the island and search for any survivors. Do you have what it takes to survive and find the truth of your own fate, or will you succumb to the many dangers along the way?

When you start the game, you are given the history leading up to the voyage you are a part of. Governor Juan Ponce de Leon aided a tribe in a war against other tribes after peace was established the chief of the tribe told the governor the legend of the Fountain of Youth. As such Juan Ponce de Leon mounted an expedition to search these mysterious islands to find the magical fountain, a total of three ships set forth on this mission. After the cutscene you wake up on one of those ships. As you are making your way through the questline you end up in the captain’s quarters where you find a map and various other items. Suddenly a storm hits the ship out of nowhere destroying it in the process, before you escape you get to choose two items from a chest to take with you, the items each have different uses so make sure you choose carefully. You then wake up on a beach remembering very little of the previous events in fact you do not even remember your name. All that you know is that you are alive and must try to survive on this deserted island. Now we get into the normal survival game tutorial where you are taught about the interface and the basics. Gather resources for shelters, tools, food and more in order to survive. Pay attention to how the weather and injuries affect your person and try not to die. If your health reaches 0 you won’t die but you will faint. Which depending on the difficulty you picked will have different effects and penalties. There is a journal that logs quests key items, history, and other useful information to help you along the way. Overall, a fun and interesting survival game with its own twists and story to uncover as you play.

I did have a few issues with Survival: Fountain of Youth but since I played the game in Early Access these issues could be fixed, as most of them were technical issues. I found there was some drastic input lag at the start of the game that did improve a bit as I continued playing. This made blocking attacks and other timing-based mechanics a little harder to perform. I also had a few instances where resources would glitch through the ground and I couldn’t pick them up, specifically when killing animals. I will also note that opening your inventory to craft or look through your items does not actually pause the game so time will pass, and you can still take damage. That isn’t really a flaw in the game and is just a mechanic but one that is easily forgotten and can lead to unfortunate circumstances in dangerous situations. Overall, nothing too major as far as issues I found in the game and many of these issues could already be improved by the full release.

Survival: Fountain of Youth is an exploration game mostly centered around surviving harsh conditions on a deserted island. There is a rough story/quest line to the game, but the main focus is exploration and survival. Search for other survivors, explore the island, discover secrets and ancient civilizations and more. The game reminds me of other survival games like The Forest and 7 Days to Die in how it plays, control and interface wise as well as the graphics. So if you like those games or other survival games like them then this game would be a perfect fit for you. Overall, Survival: Fountain of Youth is a fun survival exploration game with its own twists and story to uncover. I can’t wait to see where it goes in its full release.

Survival: Fountain of Youth is available for PC via Steam Early Access.

Related: Reviews by Brianna Keller