Outbound (Steam link) released three days ago.
Official trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx2YEXKelik
The Steam curator Modern Audience Detected lists that the game uses "Body Shape" instead of Male/Female.
I did about five minutes of digging and I noticed something odd: The first few people I saw who recorded themselves playing the game all skipped or covered up the Body Type selector when starting a new game.
Goosiest jumps his video straight past character creation.
https://youtu.be/WUbGdeGu97k
Camodo Gaming literally cuts from vehicle customization to the start of the game with a default character. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gif1Gm5nYjI&t=29s
Beacon of Nick covers up the "Body Shape" section of the character creator with his face cam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6riEnu1GOs&t=1767s
To be fair, it seems he always has his face cam in the middle left of the screen.
Edit: I forgot to mention that the devs gave Nick a thank you message for playing their game. I didn't see any replies on the other videos I saw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6riEnu1GOs&lc=UgxNj6DPjTbQBOatvuF4AaABAg
I checked a few videos from smaller Youtubers, none of them seemed to cover it up or give much other than a confused/dismissive "Body Shape?". Still, from what little I paid attention, none of them even remarked on it. I don't have any proof, but I DO get a "don't mention this" vibe from the way Body Shape was covered up/skipped for larger streamers, but only three samples isn't an affirmation.
I'll include a comment with my impressions of the... we'll call it the Non-Steam release.
For anyone wonder how the game itself plays: You drive 30 feet, get out of your van, pick up resources, get back in, drive 30 feet, get out of your van, pick up resources, get back in, drive 30 feet, run out of power. Burn a bunch of logs in your van's generator to power back up. The day/night cycle is WAY too short or at least, the day part is. Near as I can tell once it's dark it's dark until you sleep.
Recharging stations take 15 real-world minutes between uses and, despite crafting stations working while you sleep, sleeping does NOT speed up their timer, which is a huge oversight in design. On the plus side they are an instant full charge. You ARE going to run out of power coming back down from the windmill, even though there's a charge station at the base of the mountain.
You can get solar or wind turbine chargers on the East end of the map, out past the wheat fields. Yes, they only work when your van is deployed, but six or seven on a single roof square will solve your power problems. Bring extra fiber to craft the turbines.
It makes no sense that you can only light (and abandon while still lit...) campfires with one specific kind of wood.
Rabbits can't be run over. Only fed and given head pats.
Some resources seem to respawn every couple of days, so running out isn't a huge issue. No idea what happens if you starve or take too much falling damage.
As for the presentation, you're mostly dumped in to a world with no NPCs, just some rabbits and waterfowl. There's a few notes left behind in a few locations. There's some blurb in the trailer and the game description about blah blah, sustainability, etc.
The game's... ok. It's a wide-open map with no challenges other than gear checks to get by the terrain. The rest of the game is stop and start your electric van, get in and out to pick up dead wood and plants, and get back in, as well as Ubisoft levels of dinguses and Macguffins to hit "Use" on. The van runs out of battery way too often, then you get an early upgrade that seems to make the battery mechanic pointless.
tl;dr: I'm not going to buy it because I'm pretty well over giving money to Body Type/Body Shape games. The skipping over of the character creation by some streamers showing off the game seems suspicious to me.
Really disappointed in Goosiest -- I love his content but skipping over the woke aspects reeks of trying to downplay the inclusion of said elements.
Also, the anti-ICE (internal combustion engine, for the young'ns) messaging is enough to warrant this as modern-audience slop. I see that from a lot of games these days.
Also, this is just more proof that WOKE IS NOT DEAD.
This is the result of people believing that it is.
We will be seeing this kind of thing from a lot more games -- indie or otherwise. They know that if they can avoid people talking about any of the initial globohomo elements they can garner sales and market reach with normies without pushback.
This will become standard enough where it will be in every game and the outliers will be the ones who actually call it out.
Also, as an aside, I'm absolutely tired of all this liberal faggotry in media. We have to rely on Euro-jank sims to experience proper celebration of traditional internal combustion engines. We also have to rely on Euro-jank (but mostly Slav-jank) games for proper action titles.
One of the things that really peeves me off is how understated violence is in today's modern games. Weapons feel floaty and weak, there isn't much kickback, and a lot of times the hit-reactions from enemies is undercut with some element of insincere whimsy, slliness, or over-the-top effects that takes away from the impact of the violence.
I was thinking about this recently when I came across a video by someone playing a China-jank Resident Evil clone that actually had fantastic combat mechanics. The shotgun sounded powerful, had good kick-back, great shell port ejection animations, and the physics were a thing of beauty, as the enemies blasted back in a spray of blood and gore that looked impactful and deadly.
Even the pistol was effective -- blasting off and dismembering the zombies, forcing them to crawl around flail on the ground. And the melee throwing weapons were cool, with actual weight and proper impact when connecting.
It made me realise just how neutered a lot of violence is in modern games, or how understated the impact is. That Chink-jank game reminded me of the original Gears of War trilogy and games like Max Payne and Dead to Rights, where the weapons felt powerful and dangerous, and masculine.
These days a lot of it is all lame and gay.
Funny thing is: The battery's annoyingly short-lived, and your only (initial) options for charging are a charging station that only works roughly every two days and...... a generator that's powered by burning wood and plant fiber, so they didn't even get THAT message right.
Don't suppose you remember the name of the RE knock-off?
It's called the Killing Antidote: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2254890/The_Killing_Antidote/
From the video, it has poor level design, enemy AI isn't great, and there is typical China-jank when it comes to the interactions and navigation. But, the combat and physics are good; and it's mostly popular because it has a hot female lead you can dress up.
If the rest of the gameplay was as solid as the combat it might be worth recommending, but it seemed a bit too janky for my tastes.