After being announced during the Summer of Gaming in 2021, Survival Machine quickly gained player interest. Earlier last month, the developers at Grapes Pickers announced they would release a demo by the end of October, and now players can finally try the game.

This demo features a limited amount of content of the full game. You get to explore the first biome named the Frontier, which is filled with points of interest to explore like buildings, caves, and graveyards among other places. Some will test your parkour skills and others are filled with zombies. The enemies come in different varieties, normal and armored.

At the start of the game, you are stuck in a house and get rescued by a man who is on his way to humanity’s last bastion. He drives a massive vehicle and allows you to come with him in exchange for protecting the machine and keeping it fueled. There is a lot of voiced dialogue during quests to flesh out the character and the world.

Instead of building a stationary base like most other games in the genre, in Survival Machine, you construct everything on top of the vehicle. There is a good amount of decoration options, and if you do not fancy constructing a house, you do not have to and can place the crafting stations out in the open. Every other night a horde of zombies can climb on top of the machine to destroy the engine and everything you have built, so while you can build out in the open, making a small shelter is still advised. To stop these invaders, there are a few defensive structures you can build. 

The demo can not be played endlessly and is limited to a certain number of days you can survive. While multiplayer is a huge part of the game, it is not possible to play with your friends yet.

Unlike many survival games, Survival Machine won’t enter early access and is set for a full release next year.

What are your thoughts on the demo?