"After spending time with the Symbiosis demo, I came away disappointed. While I like the concept, performance issues, tedious resource gathering, and surprisingly weak combat left me unenthusiastic about its chances of survival. "
We were supplied with a free key for the purposes of writing this review, however our opinions are entirely our own.
I really wanted to like Symbiosis.
On paper, it sounds exactly like the sort of game I should enjoy. Resource gathering, base building, defensive structures, and wave-based survival are all things I’ve spent countless hours with over the years.
Unfortunately, after spending time with the demo, I came away more disappointed than excited.
Now, to be fair, this is based entirely on the current demo build. There is still time for things to improve, and perhaps they will. But based on what I’ve played so far, I am not confident in Symbiosis improving enough to make it worth playing.
When I say rough, I don’t mean a few bugs here and there.
I literally could not complete the demo.
By day nine, enemy waves had become so slow due to performance issues that I actually left my PC, went and lay down, read a book for a while, and came back roughly 20-30 minutes later.
My defences had survived, but the game had not progressed.
It appeared that somewhere between dozens and perhaps a hundred enemies had either become stuck somewhere I couldn’t reach, failed to spawn correctly, or encountered some other issue entirely. Whatever happened, I was unable to advance to the next day.
Could I have spent time hunting around the map trying to find the problem? Probably. But when the frame rate had already collapsed to roughly 15 FPS on a machine capable of running modern games at 144 FPS, I simply had no desire to keep pushing.
At that point, I was done.
Even putting the technical issues aside, I found myself struggling with the game’s overall pacing.
Gathering resources feels slow and cumbersome.
Rather than feeling rewarding, it often felt like a chore. I spent far more time gathering materials than I did actually enjoying what those materials allowed me to build.
Which brings me to my next point. The game is simply too easy.
Once I had established rows of defensive turrets, most enemy attacks became trivial. The turrets simply chewed through wave after wave with very little input required from me.
Even later in the demo, I would occasionally lose a wall section or defensive structure, but replacing them required very little effort. For a game built around surviving waves of enemies, I rarely felt under pressure.
In fact, I found myself spending far more time mining resources than actually defending my base.
Perhaps the most frustrating part is that I genuinely enjoy this genre.
I’ve spent loads of time playing games like They Are Billions and Age of Darkness: Final Stand.
Heck, I even played Conan Unconquered, despite its mixed reception, due to my love of the survival RTS genre as a whole.
I enjoy building defences. I enjoy preparing for overwhelming enemy attacks.
Symbiosis should have been right up my street and the demo alone should have been enough to keep me entertained for a good few hours.
Unfortunately that was not the case, and by the time I was done playing the demo for purposes of review, I felt bored and frustrated.
Will I play the full game? Yes, and I’ve already been promised a key for the full game by the developers, which I’m grateful for.
But unless it improves dramatically, not only in performance, but most importantly in mechanics, I must admit I’m not hopeful.
Right now, it feels like a mining game with a very weak combat layer sitting on top of it.
And with games like They Are Billions, Age of Darkness: Final Stand and Conan Unconquered already out there (to name just a few), I struggle to see why I would choose to play Symbiosis over them.
Ultimately, not a bad game, but certainly not one I’m looking forward to.
And honestly, not one I would buy unless the release build is substantially better than the current demo build.
We found Symbiosis to be a poor game, meaning that while it has some redeeming qualities, it's ultimately disappointing and not recommended for most gamers.
"Let's Talk" is a more relaxed review format used for games that we do not feel warrant a full in-depth review. While these articles still reflect our honest thoughts and experiences with a title, they are typically shorter, less structured, and more focused on delivering a direct overall impression rather than an extensive breakdown.
Let's Talk articles should not be viewed as representative of the length, depth, or overall format of our traditional review coverage.
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