The Last Haven

Review

Well, it happened . . . and it all started with a small disagreement between the three biggest nuclear powers. One word led to another, they all jumped on their high horses and the last communication transferred and recorded from the international space station was . . . “Oh my god! There are mushrooms clouds popping up everywhere down there!” It was the biggest fireworks display ever witnessed from the orbital station. Knowing all too well that the station would be their last residence, the astronauts hoped that some of us would survive this dreadful event. Incredibly, you are one of these survivors, and it will take strong leadership on your behalf to see you and your people through the next winter. This is probably the Last Haven! 

The Last Haven is a strategy/management game developed and self-published by Thunder Devs on Steam on the 20^th of March 2020 as an early access title.

The first thing after selecting to play a new game is to set up the level of difficulty, which is divided into 6 categories: starting soldiers, resources, loots, Zombies count, marauders and enemy count.  You’ll have to choose between low, medium or high in each of these categories before the game starts.

Your initial group of survivors will consist of around 20 people, and you’ll start with a small area that is sounded with a fog of war. Then you’ll be given a few tips about what to build first so you can start the last settlement on Earth. If you have decided to opt for a high level of starting soldiers, you’ll have 5 soldiers at your command (4 if you choose medium, for example) which you send to explore the rest of the map. However, it will have borders from which you can’t see far unless you build a structure close by which will then slightly expand the edge of the map and you might see and be able to access new structures.

Your goal to assure your survival is to gather the essential products, which are foods, woods, coals, rocks, fuel and electronics, in order to build houses and other structures for your settlement. As you unveil the fog of war, you’ll find loot scattered all around, which you can pick up by simply clicking on it.  Interestingly, more will appear randomly on the map every few days. Food seems to be the most frequent item to pick up, but you might find a few weapons, ammunition and some of the other essential items here and there. 

The game works on a 24 hour cycle, and each day a new event will take place. A horde of zombies might attack you. If that’s the case, make sure you eliminate them before they reach your camp and start attacking your people; if you don’t, you might have to deal with a Zombie infestation within the camp. New people might ask to join your camp, which is good but will also impact the happiness of your current population. Or you might have marauders on the outskirts of the camp; you can pay them off with food, or you can just fight them. Other events will occur within your settlement as well.

I really like the fighting as you can select a either group or an individual soldier, move them to a selected position and hopefully win the fight without too many casualties. You’ll also be able to raid other locations, but for that to happen, you must have built a laboratory.

Each research will take hours before being acquired, and the minimum is time is 24 hours. There are four types of research in this current version (Early Access): science, survival, industry (weapons and gears) and politics. When you discover the second research under the politics tab, you’ll be able to raid other locations.  The question will be whether or not you have enough well-equipped veteran soldiers to successfully attack the site and brings any goods back to your camp.

In these raids, you’ll be controlling your soldiers in a fog of war map; find the objective and eliminate all enemy soldiers in this nice RTS element.

The graphics are excellent, and I especially like it when you send your workers to scavenge scrap metal from cars, which you see will be being dismantled before your very eyes. The soundtrack reflects the unknown and strange atmosphere of the game very well. In terms of the control, you’ll be using your mouse and keyboard, and camera movements work pretty well.  There are a few bugs here and there, which is to be expected as an early access, but I can save the game when I want and come back to it without any issue. It is solid and well-presented so far. Definitely a game to keep a close eye on!