Depth of Extinction - Soundtrack. In library Be first to rate. English 3.99 3.99. Check out now Add to cart Buy as a gift Check out now Add to cart Buy as a gift Install Wishlist it Wishlisted Why buy on GOG.COM? No activation or online connection required to play. We've spent the last six months almost completely overhauling the game, so much so that we are proud to say this is the 'definitive' version of Depth of Extinction. There are several new enemies, a new character class, some new mechanics, lots of UI and tactical polish and we've squashed all of the annoying bugs (that we knew about at least).

Miles Of Empty Ocean

HIGH The sense of surviving a watery wasteland.

LOW Uninspired, low-risk combat.

WTF Who names their kid Gunwale?

As waters rise after global catastrophe, humanity devolves into tribes fighting for survival, and androids programmed to protect humans have turned on their creators. As a member of the world’s last standing government, players will search the seas for a way to unite the remaining humans and save humanity. Without unity, only damnation and a watery grave remains.

HOF Studio’s Depth of Extinction is an isometric turn-based tactics game. Players get a set of randomly generated characters and explore an overworld via submarine in search of items, weapons, and fuel to keep exploring the sea. The overworld is laid out in connected landmarks, each with their own small scenario that plays out.

For example, players may find a warehouse with pirate vessels docked outside. They can choose to sneak in, go in guns blazing, or just leave the area and keep moving. Going in loud will mean entering combat, while sneaking in may mean players can steal supplies without being seen. Players might also run across a slave trader, and have the option to do business or kill the slavers. Other landmarks might offer a government fort or merchant vessel selling new equipment or fuel.

Combat is similar to recent XCOM games. Players need to manage placement of their characters to make sure they stay safe in cover, take shots at enemies, and handle reloading. Enemies may drop items or money for players to collect, and loot boxes can be found in most maps. Occasionally, players can rescue other survivors who will join the fight if there’s room in the sub. Otherwise, they return to HQ where they’ll be ready for future missions.

As characters survive encounters, players can eventually assign them a class (sniper, heavy, or assault, for example) which will change what type of abilities and weapons the character can use. Each class can also affect how specific scenarios play out. With the example of the pirates at the warehouse, players can have their sniper scout the warehouse ahead of time, meaning that new items will be available to salvage as opposed to what’s found by simply sneaking in.

It seems to offer a solid turn-based experience, but being named Depth of Extinction is ironic since it’s too shallow. Scenarios in the overworld are repeated multiple times, and combat encounters suffer from few options. Individual maps may be rearranged slightly, but the layouts never hold enough secrets or variety for the player to feel like they’re having genuinely different encounters. Enemies feel like they spawn in the same places, even if the rooms are slightly rearranged.

Speaking of feeling too similar, many tactics games allow for characters of the same class to be built differently from each other in order to give the player a range of different skills and abilities. Depth doesn’t. Each sniper will get the same sniper abilities, each assault will get the same build, and so on. There’s just not enough character diversity on offer here.

The difficulty for this game is out of tune. For instance, there were multiple occasions when I took a low-level heavy character into a room without getting in cover, took multiple shots and only lost a small fraction of health — easily survivable and forgiving. On the other hand, attempting a side mission got my whole party wiped in short order. Also, fuel must be spent to travel between each area on the overworld, but fuel can be gathered nearly in every scenario or combat mission, negating the need to strategically manage it as a resource.

Depth Of Extinction Steam

As a strange side note, Extinction has some issues with its aiming system — characters were frequently hit that should not have been hit — it should not be possible that my sniper can shoot through two walls and still hit an enemy, and vice versa. Not only does it mean that the game is improperly easier thanks to magic bullets, it also means that the basic mechanics are not working properly.

Depth of Extinction has a solid concept but suffers from repeated assets, uninspiring combat and questionable mechanics. With all the other tactics options on the market, I find it impossible to recommend this one. Rating: 4 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by HOF Studios. It is currently available on Steam. This game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on Steam. Approximately 16 hours were spent in single player mode, and the game was not completed. This game includes no multiplayer.

Parents: This game is not currently rated by the ESRB but I’d say that it contains Mild Language and Violence. There is death depicted, and each body will fall into a small pool of pixelated blood. The enemies will also call the players characters B**** and B******, say D*** on occasion, but nothing too heinous. Teens and young adults should be fine with this game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All necessary dialogue is delivered via text in boxes. Characters will have small audio utterances throughout each combat scenario, but nothing relevant to the story or to gameplay. Text is not resizable.

Remappable Controls: The game offers no remappable controls. There is no control diagram. Players will use the mouse to do essentially everything, can can use a keyboard for shortcuts or if they want to rename their characters.

Eugene Sax

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Anyone who uses Steam knows that games in Greenlight aren't always of the highest quality.

But from time to time, something very interesting appears out of the oozing verdant mass to grab the community's attention. Depth of Extinction, a 2D turn-based tactical RPG from HOF Studios, is one of those rare finds.

After spending some time in development, the game garnered enough votes to make it to Steam's front page -- and as of this writing, is one of the platform's top sellers. And with good reason: while Depth of Extinction might not be perfect, it's a fun throwback to old school classics like X-COM.

Story and Setting

Depth of Extinction is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where the remnants of civilization have managed to survive on small bases scattered all over the world. Since most of the Earth has been flooded by a cataclysm, your squad moves between locations in a submarine, which is an interesting touch in a genre filled with space ships.

The world map is divided into five sectors, all of which correspond to different factions. On top of that, each sector contains several major locations, each of which consists of smaller bases that serve as mini-maps.

This is where all the events take place. Your squad arrives at one of the chosen maps, raids it for loot, and moves on to another one.

Main points of interest keep you pointed in the right directions, guiding you down the optimal path for story-based items. To get them, you'll go through a chain of intermediate mini-maps. However, the game allows you yo choose the path on your own, as well, so you can make your journey shorter or longer depending on your needs.

For example, if you need money, weapons, or healing items, then you ought to raid as many bases within the game's major locations as possible. Depth of Extinction will even suggest that you either skip certain locations or quietly observe them without interfering, while others state clearly that you can enter, kill a bunch of enemies, and take all that you can find.

This makes selecting your path to the main objective a lot of fun in most regards. Unfortunately, the mini-maps themselves aren't as exciting; the design of each is great, but the actions you need to take are all basically the same over and over again.

Gameplay Mechanics

Before setting out on missions, the game asks you to choose your loadout. It includes the submarine you want to take on your journey and the squad that will accompany you on your mission.

To get you started, you'll get a relatively good amount of funding, which is enough to buy a basic submarine and add one extra member to your squad. From there on out, it's up to you to keep things running and your crew manned. Each squad member has their own perks and specialties, but in the beginning, it doesn't really matter who you choose.

The further you progress through the game, you will be able to meet Merchants, NPCs that can provide you with extra equipment. Although you'll get loot from looting bases, the really good items come from spending mission money at the Merchant to get the really good stuff that'll help you deal with more powerful enemies and bosses.

When you arrive at a base, your team moves in turns. If you spot an enemy, you can start shooting immediately.

However, positioning squad is very important, and you need to enter each map with certain tactics and strategies in mind.

Just as it is in other tactical games like X-COM, it's important to keep your squad behind cover as much as possible. It's also important to the range of your currently equipped weapons. For example, it's wiser to position a sniper further away from the enemy and a shotty much, much closer.

To get a better idea of what this is like, you can easily compare the game's shooting mechanics to those in Wasteland, where you see hit chance when hovering your mouse over the enemy.

Mercing enemies is made easier seeing as the controls are very simple and intuitive. Although the process can be a bit clunky in the beginning before you learn all the hotkeys, the mid- to late-game runs really smooth.

Depth Of Extinction Review

The only real downside is that there isn't much variation here. Perhaps the game will see a few post-release patches to increase tactical diversity, but as it stands, you'll us the same strategies to win time and time again -- even against Depth of Extinction's harder foes.

Final Thoughts

Like I said in the beginning: Depth of Extinction isn't perfect, but it's got a lot of good things going for it.

The game's visual and audio presentation are great. The soundtrack is especially cool, and it plays in the vein of 80's synthwave, which really strengthens the overall vibe; it perfectly fits the 2D setting of the game with its industrial design. Nothing really distracts you from the gameplay in this regard, which means that the developers paid a lot of attention to the details.

The downside here is that although the gameplay is fun, it does get a bit boring if you play for longer sessions. You basically repeat the same actions without much variation.

But if you're a fan of old-school turn-based games, then you will enjoy the hell out of Depth of Extinction. So at the end of the day, it's all a matter of perception and taste.

[Note: A copy of Depth of Extinction was provided by HOF Studios for the purpose of this review.]