Darwin Project

(copied from my Steam)

I really miss this game. I never actually played the Battle Royale part, maybe once or twice, but I spent most my time as a Game Director, because I loved the social aspect and the unique gameplay you didn't really have in any other BR game at the time. I loved talking to all the players to a point where there would be at least 1 or 2 people in each lobby, both on US and EU servers, that would recognize me and ask me about my day. It was such a tight knit community - and I don't think gaming memories like this will ever be able to be replicated for me. Despite gaining exposure through various big streamers, like Shroud and DrDisrespect, if I remember correctly, the temporary hype wouldn't last and the game died down to a pretty small playerbase again. It was about 4 years ago, in early 2020, when I booted up this game for the last time. I already hadn't touched it in almost 2 years at this point, and with only like 10-15 concurrent players it was basically impossible to find a lobby. Now, in early 2024, there's 0 active players at the time of writing this. Zero concurrent players. I guess I won't ever get a nostalgia match on here, especially with the people that I had already gotten to know pretty well, but it was nice, honestly. It was really nice. This game was the home to some of my most treasured gaming memories, along with the peak 2016 after-school Minecraft sessions; and that has got to mean something.

You honestly just had to be there; maybe Darwin Project wasn't the most interesting Battle Royale for those actually fighting the battle, but it harbored one of the most unique mechanics I have seen in any game to this day - the mechanic/role of the Game Director. Being able to talk to all the players, starting events on the maps, shrinking the map to your liking, giving out resources or putting bounties on people's heads; it kept the game fresh, the interactions interesting, and if the players going against each other and the Game Director seeing over the game already knew each other, you could have some of the most fun laden fights you will ever experience on a screen.

The phase of me playing this game (and of the game actually being playable, lol), was quite short, but I had an amazing few months that I still remember vividly to this day. Sometimes I wonder if some of the players I almost got to call my friends remember this game as vividly as I do. Some guy called Liam who was excited to have me as Director, because his friend had told him about me (or Mr. German, as he called me, since he was from the US). This girl called Sam who tried to sweet talk me into giving her wood every game, because she "was so bad at the game that only a couple of logs would give her a realistic fighting chance" (her words). And a dad with his son, whose names I sadly forgot, which I encountered about a handful of times, who genuinely were some of the sweetest and most wholesome team mates you could imagine. Those are the people that stay in mind, even over half a decade later; and if you were to ask me in another half a decade, I won't have forgotten about them at that point either. Of course there's more connections that I made, more than I could ever put into a sentimental review like this, but I think, if you've read this far, you get my point:

This was peak gaming for reasons unknown to most other games; and it just shows how much more fun your experience can be if you have a talkative, friendly, tight knit community.