When Island 359 released onto Steam Early Access two months ago for the HTC Vive, it was met with a lot of love and excitement from fans. In our review, we stated that the premise and gameplay were rock solid, with tons of room for expansion, but there were occasional bugs and a lack of deep, compelling reasons to keep playing for an extended period of time. Luckily, the lack of content is being partially addressed soon by way of the first massive, major update dubbed Second Blood.
This update introduces a significant amount of of new content including brand new weapons, new dinosaurs, bug fixes, and a new game mode. In the released version of the game, you can only engage in the standard Mercenary mode. You’re dropped off on an island to explore, kill dinosaurs, and get out with your rewards. But now you’ll have more options than ever.
The main new feature of the Second Blood update is the introduction of the Big Game mode. In this mode, you’ll be equipped with a bow and throwing knives in a much more difficult and dangerous expedition into the wilderness. Smaller dinosaurs, such as raptors, won’t be worth anything in the grand scheme of things, as your sights are strictly trained on the bigger, more daunting, triceratops.
When your bow is equipped in one hand, the other hand can reach over a shoulder to draw an arrow. From there, you grab the string, pull back, and let loose. The haptics of the string pull and the arc of the arrow feels extremely satisfying. As far as I know, this is one of the first games to offer open-ended, stealth-based gameplay with a bow and arrow — most other games in VR that use the weapon are tower-defense based or don’t allow free movement.
During my preview of this new mode, I noticed that it was significantly harder than the standard game mode. Throwing knives and a bow are far less deadly than gun powder-fueled firepower, but this is a design choice. In the Big Game mode, you’re supposed to feel the fear of your surroundings even more.
Once I finally came across my first triceratops, my jaw was on the floor. The 360-audio reverberated around me with each of the beast’s lumbering steps and I honestly felt like I had walked onto the set of the latest Jurassic Park film. In this mode, accuracy and stealth are of the utmost importance.
The tall grass spread across the island can be used for hiding from the dinosaurs. If you’re standing in the grass and you physically crouch down so that your head and entire body are covered, you can avoid detection. It’s an excellent strategy to line up a shot, while hidden, for one of the weak points. Eyeballs, throats, and jugulars are the best places to get a kill shot. And you’ll need them — if any of the prehistoric monstrosities spot you before they’re dead, you likely won’t survive.
The Second Blood update also adds the Brock, a fully-automatic G-18 pistol and the AX-74, a rifle similar to the AK-47. Hunters will gain access to the scope as well, an upgrade for all of the various weapons enabling shots from much farther range. You can even find the Bow and Throwing Knives featured in the Big Game mode from one of the procedurally generated loot drops in the standard Mercenary Mode. Topping off the update are new collectible metals for increased bounties and a slew of new animations for all of the dinosaurs adding an extra layer of visceral realism.
“Second Blood is really just us getting started with all of the new things we want to bring to Island 359” said Jeremy Chapman, CloudGate CCO and Founder, in the same press release. “With this update we finally have the tools in place to blow out our content, and we have quite a few more surprises lined up that we will start releasing in shorter intervals as smaller update bites, as well as large updates like Second Blood happening a bit more regularly.”
Island 359 is available now with official support for the HTC Vive on Steam Early Access for $19.99. This update is scheduled to go live as of 10AM PST today, on October 28th, 2016.
