Polish publisher Art Games Studio and Polish developer A2 Softworks announced that they have a new game in the works called Climber: Sky Is The Limit. It’s a realistic mountain climbing simulator where you’ll have to brave the weather and treacherous landscapes on your way to the top of some of the highest mountains in the world.
According to A2 Softworks CEO Andrzej Stroiński, it’s not just about climbing rocks and avoiding certain death below, it’s also about the survival aspects of the game as well. In the press release he explains…
“Players will experience a unique combination of survival and simulation. Climbing is just one aspect of the game. The second consists of all the other elements that influence successfully reaching the summit. In Climber: Sky is the Limit you will have to take into consideration a whole range of aspects including strength recovery, proper nutrition, and body temperature. This game will appeal to both climbing enthusiasts and casual players without any climbing experience.”
Interesting.
As usual, there’s an announcement trailer that was attached to the news, which you can check out below.
Eh, so let’s go over the good first.
It looks like you’ll have to manually plot your course up the mountain, pick and choose the supplies you bring with you up the mountain, as well as avoid any sort of pitfalls, fissures and rockslides.
A lot of the minuscule details applied to the way you prepare and traverse the mountain is pretty cool, especially since these are features that we often don’t get in other games… mainly because there aren’t many climbing games out there.
However, we have to juxtapose what A2 Softworks is trying to do compared to what we’re actually seeing in action. And I have to say that the biggest drawback to the game is that the animations just aren’t very good at all.
There are a lot of cost-effective animation middleware tools available that could very readily help with making the characters move and react a lot more smoothly to the environment and actions taking place.
The 3D hand-animated movements just really detracts from the overall experience. If they could manage to get the animations sorted, I think this might be a decent, budget-priced outdoor climbing simulator.
Also, props to Art Games Studio and A2 Softworks for at least trying something new and not rehashing yet another closed arena hero-shooter or microtransaction-based CCG.
Climber: Sky Is The Limit isn’t due to drop for PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Microsoft’s Xbox consoles until 2021. You can, however, wishlist the game on PC by visiting the Steam store page.
