Sheltered (video game)

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Sheltered
Sheltered cover.jpeg
Developer(s)Unicube
Publisher(s)Team17
Designer(s)Sonny Meek, Dean Foster
Platform(s)
Release
    • WW: March 15, 2016
  • Android, iOS
    • WW: October 25, 2017
  • Switch
    • WW: December 18, 2018
Genre(s)Survival game
Mode(s)Single player

Sheltered is a post-apocalyptic survival game developed by Unicube. Team17 published it on March 17, 2016, for Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, Android, iOS, and Nintendo Wii U. Players control a family that survives a nuclear war by taking refuge in an abandoned underground war shelter that they found. As their supplies run low, the family must scrounge above ground.

A sequel, Sheltered 2 was announced during the 22nd of April 2021, set for release on Steam in 2021.

Gameplay[]

A family survives a nuclear war by taking refuge in an underground shelter. Players must guide the family to survive various threats, such as starvation, radiation poisoning, and dehydration.

Players will need to extend the shelter, build toilets and showers for hygiene and stress prevention, and storage for all manner of items, including food, water and crafting components and upgrade many aspects of the shelter to improve the lives of the family.

Each family member starts with two traits, choosing a positive one when creating the characters, and including a negative one when the game starts. Negative traits can be changed to positive ones if certain conditions are met (e.g unhygienic can be changed to hygienic by contracting food poisoning).

Players will also choose a pet for their family, the pet can provide many different advantages if they keep the pet alive, and if the pet dies, each family member will suffer severe trauma.

In order to get supplies for the shelter, the family will need to go on expeditions, the map is randomly generated, and different locations contain different loot unique to them.

On the surface, family members may meet survivors of the nuclear war, these characters have procedurally generated appearance, stats, and traits, these survivors can be killed for their items, traded with, or even recruited to their shelter, though some survivors may try murdering the characters, if their loyalty has gone up completely, then the recruit will not attempt any murder, and can go on expeditions themselves.

The penultimate quest of each map and overall goal of the game, "Extended Family", is achieved by fixing the camper van above the shelter, and scanning frequencies with the radio to obtain the quest, the player must get some requested items for the survivor they meet for the quest, when the survivor's request is fulfilled, they will inform the family of a new shelter housing another member of their family, the player can then move to their new shelter, leaving their recruited surface survivors and old shelter behind, which contains a procedurally generated new family member, who can be either an adult or a child, as well as a chance to contain a new pet if the previous one died, with each shelter and map travelled to becoming harder to survive in.

Development[]

Following a successful Kickstarter funding drive in which the game surpassed its goal of £15,000, Team17 announced they would publish the game.[1] It was released on March 15, 2016.[2] The game was last updated on July 16, 2019.[3]

Reception[]

At Metacritic, the Windows version has an aggregate score of 62/100,[4] 69/100 on Xbox One,[6] and 70/100 on PlayStation 4.[5] Sam Loveridge Digital Spy cited Sheltered as "Xbox Live Game of the Week" and rated it 5/5 stars, comparing it to This War of Mine.[8] Reviewing the Windows version for Eurogamer, Cassandra Khaw wrote, "Sheltered is an interesting attempt to simulate the life of a post-nuclear family, but it falls short of its potential."[9] Also reviewing the Windows version, Kyle LeClair of Hardcore Gamer rated it 3.5/5 stars and called it a "fun and challenging game" that nevertheless fails to stand out from other survival games.[10]

Sequel[]

Sheltered 2, a direct sequel, has been announced and scheduled to release on PC in 2021.[11]

References[]

  1. ^ Smith, Adam (2014-06-30). "Gimme: Team 17 To Publish Sheltered". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  2. ^ Porter, Matt. "Sheltered Release Date Announced". IGN. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  3. ^ "Sheltered - Steam News Hub".
  4. ^ a b "Sheltered for PC Reviews". Metacritic. Red Ventures. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  5. ^ a b "Sheltered for PlayStation 4 Reviews". Metacritic. Red Ventures. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  6. ^ a b "Sheltered for Xbox One Reviews". Metacritic. Red Ventures. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  7. ^ "Sheltered for Switch Reviews". Metacritic. Red Ventures. Retrieved 2021-09-05.
  8. ^ Loveridge, Sam (2016-03-13). "5 games you should play this week: Sheltered, Star Ghost and more". Digital Spy. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  9. ^ Khaw, Cassandra (2016-03-18). "Sheltered review". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  10. ^ LeClair, Kyle (2016-03-21). "Review: Sheltered". Hardcore Gamer. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  11. ^ Acebedo, Bayani. "Sheltered 2 Announced for PC in 2021". whatoplay. whatoplay. Retrieved 23 April 2021.

External links[]

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