VOLCANOIDS Preview for Steam Early Access

Volcanoids is described in its Steam description as “a first-person, base-building survival game set in the steampunk era where humans and technology meet”. The game was created and published by Volcanoid and was initially released onto Steam Early Access back in late January of last year. However, recently, Volcanoids has been upgraded to include a co-op mode that allows players to collaborate with other random players or friends, in groups of up to four members. The new feature is especially useful for a game such as this, which requires some ability to multitask and has a story and set up that emphasizes the usefulness of a team/crew.

For those who do not know much about the game’s story, it all takes place on an island called “Adranos.” Adranos suddenly became inhabitable due to an abnormal spike in the number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, causing your character and others to have to abandon the island and live elsewhere. During the time of humanity’s absence, Adranos is overtaken by an unknown and hostile species of robotic creatures.

Curious to understand what has happened to their home, your character joins a crew of individuals who return to the island to study how the environment of Adranos has changed. Thus, game play consists of collecting objects and artifacts around Adranos to be analyzed by searching the landscape, all the while avoiding the dangerous cogs that took over. Players are equipped with a pickaxe for mining, a gun for defense against the cogs, and more.

Volcanoids involves some base building, navigation, and crafting tasks. While players seek to find objects out on the open terrain of Adranos, they must also work to avoid periodical volcanic eruptions; time between eruptions varies.

In short, the many tasks listed above make Volcanoids more compatible with its new co-op mode. It takes place in a setting that features a humanity versus other dichotomy that makes it optimal to work with others; not to mention that some of the game takes place in the ship, which is usually not a one-man maintenance job, and the story calls for a crew sent to work together on the mission. The crew I joined only had one other person in it, which means that it was just me and the host/crew captain that set up the game, but players can join with up to four.

There are things to consider before joining a team, such as how many players you prefer to play with and the difficulty level the crew you would like to join is playing on. As a duo, we were able to clear more ground and we could allocate tasks to make things easier. As a new player, I was grateful to be playing alongside someone who could work the navigation while I stuck to simpler tasks, like defending our base and mining for artifacts.

As for setting qualifications for your team, players who wish to join will see the difficulty level and progress of your team. I would expect that, for the most part, only experienced players will join you if you are on higher difficulty. If not, as the host of the game, you have the ability to end the game without saving if you are not satisfied with your team. The host is also the only one who can save progress. If you are not the host, you can just leave or you can go to “sleep,” which will save your inventory and progress.

From what I saw, there is no simple “remove this member” button, but the game is pretty low stakes. Characters that die are automatically revived and their lost items have the possibility of being retrieved. In my opinion, Volcanoids runs better and is more enjoyable in its co-op and multiplayer forms. Nonetheless, new players may want to get themselves oriented in the game by starting off with single player mode, especially considering the possible limitations regarding communicating with team mates. I did not find any chat area, so it will be harder to cooperate without a mic, but this is the case for many games. As long as you somewhat know how to play, you should be fine.

Check Out the Volcanoids Co-Op Trailers;

Volcanoids is available for $19.99 for Windows PC and Linux via Steam Early Access.