Metaverse: Origins

Metaverse: Origins is a sandbox survival game set in procedurally generated worlds that you can dig into and reshape. You manage survivors, gather and craft materials, build structures and direct the growth of a settlement. In co-op, each player controls their own survivor in the same world.

Survival and crafting

Time passes during gathering, knapping, crafting and building, and these actions can be interrupted. Hunger, thirst and fatigue build over time, and the world continues running while you are in a menu. The game simulates wounds, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen, blood loss, body temperature and blood sugar; there is no health regeneration. Cold, wetness, exhaustion and injury affect one another.

You can collect stones, flint and branches, strip bark, gather berries and hazelnuts, and forage or dig. By inspecting materials and practising, you learn techniques for knapping flint into flakes, knives and hand axes, twisting plant fibre into cordage, burning charcoal and cooking over a campfire. You can place a campfire, lean-to or stick-frame structure, then bring materials to the site and build over time.

Worlds and survivors

Each world is generated from a seed, with coastlines, mountain ranges, upland lakes, caves and about a dozen biomes, including temperate forest, locust woodland, rainforest and alpine heath. You can dig and reshape all the terrain. The game also features swimming, breath-holding and diving, as well as weather and a day-night cycle.

At the start of a game, you name your survivor and choose their skin tone, hair and eye colour. You can recruit other survivors, switch control between them and assign early jobs such as gathering wood, keeping fires fuelled, or digging and hauling earth. Death is permanent: if you lose your last survivor, you start again as a newcomer some miles away.

Co-op play

You can host or join friends through Steam. Each player controls their own survivor in the same world, and a character list shows who is playing each one.

Current crafting scope

The crafting tree currently reaches around the stone age. Woodworking, leatherworking, pottery and metalworking are not yet accessible in play. The game also has early AI jobs and some placeholder item art.