Nova Antarctica [IMPRESSIONS] – Survival at a Glacial Pace

There is something undeniably compelling about the end of the world, especially when it looks this cute. Set in the year 2917, Nova Antarctica drops you into a frozen, post-apocalyptic version of the southern continent, with players taking on the role of a silent explorer tasked with traveling a fair old distance to the South Pole. The game is initially very slim on narrative detail, making it clear from the jump that the destination – and the arduous trek to get there – is what really matters here.

Check out some screenshots down below:

While the story is somewhat sparse, the game leans heavily on environmental storytelling, and you’ll stumble upon destroyed objects, the remains of previous explorers, and plenty of small objects that slowly piece together the lore. It was enough to keep me interested in figuring out what exactly happened to the world, even if the game was in no rush to tell me. Oh, and there are some adorable animals to encounter too, which will ALWAYS appeal to me.

At its heart, Nova Antarctica follows a classic survival formula. You are constantly gathering materials from your surroundings, maintaining your stamina, and keeping your energy recharged, whilst you’re also able to scan objects around you to collect blueprints to craft items – over time, you build up a growing repertoire of blueprints and items that makes gathering easier and improve your skillset. Interestingly, the game is stage-based, moving you closer to the South Pole with each stage you play through. Since resources become scarcer the further you go, there is a heavy emphasis on gathering everything you can early on by venturing off the beaten path… I’m a bit odd in that I genuinely love the prepping phase of survival games, so the idea of stocking up for a massive journey really appealed to me.

Unfortunately, the execution is where the ice starts to crack. The game introduces various weather types that directly impact your temperature and energy, such as radiation storms or blinding blizzards, which in theory, should add plenty of tension to the journey. In practice, however, it adds frustration. The game isn’t good at actually describing how to protect yourself, and I found myself dying in blizzards multiple times because I thought I was in cover when I wasn’t, or I simply stumbled into a storm and the agonizingly slow pace of the character made it impossible to escape. There is a weather forecast system that helps a little, but it could have detailed the mechanics much more to ease newcomers in.

What’s strange is that the opening of the game is bogged down by a lot of tutorials that hurt the pacing, and whilst I understood the core survival mechanics, it could have gone into a bit more depth on how to deal with things like the dangerous weather more effectively. It doesn’t make a great first impression to have your hand held so tightly while battling such difficult mechanics, whilst other hazards (like the dangerous viruses from dead characters) are only touched upon too.

Check out some screenshots down below:

This frustration is compounded by the fiddly nature of the entire experience. Whether you are building, climbing, or even jumping, there is a slow clunkiness to your movement that never feels smooth. I even died once by dropping from a seemingly safe height, which felt incredibly unfair (especially since I had just spent a long time gathering materials). When you combine this sluggish movement with a stage-based permadeath system – where dying sends you all the way back to the start of the stage – it becomes hard to want to really invest yourself into each run… you can spend ages gathering stuff only to die to an unpredictable weather event and have to do it all again.

The user experience doesn’t help much, either. The in-game UI and menus are a bit bland and fiddly to navigate, whilst looking up details (such as what an item actually does) isn’t very intuitive. While there is a radial menu that does streamline the crafting process, it isn’t perfect, especially when compared to similar survival games that have handled these systems much better.

I really wanted to like Nova Antarctica. The theme, the cute aesthetic, and the premise of a long, perilous journey were right up my alley, but ultimately, it’s just a bit dull. It isn’t a bad game and it’s the sort of experience that I can imagine gets easier (and more enjoyable) the longer you spend with it. I’ve just played much better survival titles that respect the player’s time more, and between the unpredictable deaths and the slow pace, I found it hard to want to keep investing myself in the journey.

Developer: RexLabo, Parco Games
Publisher: Parco Games
Platform(s): PC (Played)
Website: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2054310/Nova_Antarctica/

What are our ‘Impressions’ features?
As a small part-time team with busy lives, we can’t always play every title to completion for a full review. Instead, our ‘Impressions’ features serve as a snapshot of our early experience with the full release of a game. We dive in for roughly 1 to 2 hours to get a feel for the mechanics, the presentation, the atmosphere, and the vibe of the game, all whilst offering our initial thoughts to answer the question: has it hooked us enough to want to keep playing?