Survival RPG IfSunSets Has Potential, But Performance Is Lacking

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We all have a particular genre of games we get into, and mine happens to be survival games. Whether it is Valheim, The Planet Crafter, or Subnautica, there is always something about living off a world’s resources in a video game that grabs me. I’m not sure what that is! For IfSunSets, there are some interesting ideas. I see potential in this survival RPG, but it has a long way to go.

It is also a pretty saturated market, with many survival games releasing in Early Access first. This can lead to rough development, especially with very ambitious survival games. This is where IfSunSets comes in a new release by Smilegate that launched this week. While it has some early access jank and rough performance, I believe it is worth watching!

The premise behind IfSunSets is interesting enough, focusing on the day and night cycle to power its gameplay loop. Players must spend the day exploring their surroundings, gathering resources and building their base, and their nights desperately holding off attacks from umbral horrors. It’s a nice take on the usual genre, and I appreciate this more. Encouraging me to explore during the day and build up gives me an incentive. Some crafting survival games can be too passive with how they want players to experience their world, so it caught my interest. It can be played solo or multiplayer, although you require an Epic Store account.

My journey began washing up on a beach after my boat was wrecked. After allying with a rather insulting fairy, the game kicks off as most survival RPGs do. Players must explore the surrounding area while filling out a checklist of small tutorials. They do a decent job guiding the player, and the visuals were rather nice looking. I especially enjoy how the water looks. If it were not for the hordes of vicious monsters trying to eat me, it might be a nice place to live.

In terms of mechanics, you can expect the usual. You have many things to craft, such as equipment, armor, and structures, while managing food and water. SunSets has several difficulty modes, including custom difficulty modifiers, which provide solid customization options. Combat is pretty clunky, especially at the beginning when your options are limited. When dealing with the beach crabs waddling around, this is not much of a problem, but things turn rapidly downhill when the night comes in. If you’re not prepared, you will be killed quickly, although the placeable traps and barricades offer some flexibility. It’s almost like playing a tower defense game, and I had fun kiting enemies into the traps despite my complaints about the combat.

Performance leaves a little to be desired, and I found quite a few bugs during these initial impressions. Early Access is prone to this, although I can argue that everyone wants their experience to be as smooth as possible. I had to play this on a laptop as the Steam Deck refused to boot the game, crashing back to the desktop without any error message to tell me what went wrong. Even with specs far beyond the recommended settings, IfSunSets saw frequent frame drops, especially during nighttime. I had a few funny instances of my character getting stuck on a tree while trying to chop it down. However, it is in the early days, and there is much room for optimization. I was not expecting it to be playable on the Deck yet, but I will provide an update if it is!

These are early impressions of IfSunSets, and I came away from it cautiously optimistic. I appreciate the gameplay focus shifting between exploration and crafting into a horror survival struggle, and the day and night cycle provides a sense of urgency without feeling rushed. There is potential here, but I recommend waiting for a few more patches before diving in.

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