During Gamescom last week, I had the pleasure to sit down and try something I’d not seen before. This new game from the team at Channel37 tasks us with a simple objective – to save humanity itself. This is the XboxEra Hands-on Preview for The Last Caretaker.
Wild Robots
In The Last Caretaker, you play as a robot with a singular purpose – to nurture and secure humanity’s future. Not another survival crafting game, I hear you cry! Well hold on a second, because the set up for the game super interesting.
In this world, the polar ice caps have melted, and humanity, in a last desperate bid for survival, looked to the stars. However, turns out having a baby in space is super tricky, so machines were created to nurture human ‘seeds’ inside the Lazarus Complex, a colossal structure on top of a vast ocean. Once ready, it’s our job to launch the future of humanity into space.
To do this, we’ll be crafting tools from various salvaged supplies, before heading out in a ship to search for new locations, technology and solutions. The team pointed out that no procedural technology has been used here – everything has been been meticulously crafted by the team, and even at this early stage, it really does look lovely.
Let The Power Flow
I got to sit down and play The Last Caretaker for around thirty minutes in an early build of the game, with the developers guiding me through three different sections to get a general feel for things. The first section had me grappling with the uniqueness of my protagonist. I am not human, and therefore things like thirst, hunger, stamina etc work a little differently in this title.
After waking up (or powering on?) in a dark, creaking facility, the game introduces the first thing to get to grips with – power, and how to utilise it. I drag cables across the floor, connecting them to the main grid to power the facility up and turn on the lights. Interestingly, I can also charge myself up, or expel charge back if I need to sacrifice energy to enable a system that requires some juice. If I run out of energy, I’ll start to lose vitatlity, and it seems these two energy systems will need to be closely monitored. Either way, I foresee some super interesting puzzles coming from these mechanics alone, and connecting up the different systems felt incredibly intuitive.
Once I’d figured that out, I equipped a wrench to repair some damaged systems, and finally powered the dock system where an old barge waited for me below. The ship itself seemed to be upgradable, with multiple slots to improve engine and power efficiency. No time to worry about that though, and once I had her repaired, powered and fuelled, I opened the docking bay doors (the ripple as the door sank below the surface was a super nice touch). Now at the wheel of my slow moving barge, I was stunned by the sheer scale of this desolate yet beautiful open world.
We need guns – Lots of guns.
Once I’d set out, I made my way to the only thing I could see on the horizon, which is what looked to be a huge, rusting anttena of jutting out of the ocean. The developer skipped me ahead, and equipped me with an energy weapon. The ammo source? My internal systems. The gun was plugged into me, so managing my energy levels became an immediate concern.
Spread across the structure were strange growths, almost like they were some sort of life form. I’m not here to ask questions though, I’m armed, so I unleashed a charged up shot to wipe them from the surface of the tower. Ascending inside, I found more of this strange substance, which seemed to contain creatures with glowing red eyes and small wings that would rush towards me, causing damage.
I have plenty of questions. What was this strange biomass? What had humanity done to the planet? Answers would of course have to wait, as the developers merely wanted to give me a taste of what conflict would be like in The Last Caretaker. We moved on the last section – launch.
Humanity’s Last Hope
Here, the developer wanted to give me an example of what it would be like to successfully launch a rocket into space, potentially filled with human life destined to live among the stars at Kepler colony. I triggered the countdown and watch the rocket ascend. That was the end of the demo, and I was left thoroughly intrigued by what I had played.
I love a good mystery, and the Last Caretaker seems to have plenty of that, and I have to say I found the whole concept utterly mesmerising. With plenty of interesting resource management, a fascinating (and beautiful!) setting and a focus on exploration and mystery, this is a single player, story driven survival game. It’s not just about the survival of our mechanical protagonist, but of the entire human race. That’s one hell of responsibility.
The Last Caretaker releases into Early Access on Steam and Epic Games Store, with plans for a console release to follow. You can follow Channel37 on YouTube or join their Discord.
