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Relive the advent of human civilization, or take your own path.

Vintage Story is a voxel-based, procedurally-generated survival sandbox game released by Anego Studios in September 2016, though it continues to receive regular content updates (approximately every 6 months). Its aesthetics and core gameplay are heavily inspired by Minecraft (especially so given that the founding developers got their start making celebrated Minecraft mods), but its unique qualities lie in its rigorous, unforgiving gameplay and surprisingly detailed technological progression, geography, and building mechanics. Progression is slow and arduous, particularly in the early phases of the game, where you are scratching out a living from wild berries and knapping your own flint tools to cut reeds for baskets, but through the course of the game you can figure out leatherworking, metal smelting, crop management, and even mechanical power systems, among other things.

The game's main page can be found here. The game's small but active following continually produces and maintains a wide array of mods, courtesy of the easy-to-use modding API baked-in to the game's design. The mod database can be found here.

This game features the following tropes:

  • After the End: Vintage Story takes place after an apocalypse which has wiped out all of civilization and most of humanity, with you and the traders being one of the few signs of life.
  • Arc Symbol: Gears. They're the primary currency for trading, and your temporal stability is represented by one. Giant gears are also prevalent during temporal storms.
  • Bears Are Bad News: Bears are the most dangerous animal in the game having huge amounts of health, a run speed on par with the player, and massive damage output.
  • Bling of War: Silver and gold armor is much more ornate than other armors, but given how they're made from hard-to-find ores and offer as much protection as copper armor it has very little if any practical use outside of showing off.
  • Boring, but Practical: The Commoner class has no buffs but no debuffs as well, which makes it suitable for players who want to be at their most efficient overall.
  • Character Class System: Vintage Story has a total of six classes with their own advantages and disadvantages, save for the Commoner.
  • Creepy Cave: Spelunking is mandatory to acquire more ores to technologically progress, but are dark, treacherous, and more dangerous drifters appear the deeper you go.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Given the game's nature, this is a must. Bows, high places, and traps are just a few ways to get an advantage over the many threats in the world.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Steel is the highest tier in the game, with strong weapons and armor that can handle a lot but getting to that level in the first place requires a lot of time, effort, and resources.
  • Early Game Hell: You start off with nothing but the clothes on your back and the handbook to guide you. Spears don't do much damage, are flimsy, and require the proper stone to create. The only armor that is craftable at that point is body armor made from firewood which isn't very protective nor durable, and with no reliable source of food, it isn't surprising for many players to die quickly.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Players that reach the Steel Age in terms of equipment and technology are truly above the basics of survival: food is easily grown/harvested and can last for years within storage, laborious tasks such as grinding flour and hammering metal is automated via windmills, enemies that would previously lacerate you with ease now bounce off your armour, and you're able to spend time on purely artistic endeavours such as sculpting. It's not easy to get there, nor is it quick, but when you're there it's great.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Since update 1.18, a giant tripodal creature can be seen circling around during a temporal storm and despite being fortunately nothing but purely visual, could make a player wonder just what the hell it is.
  • Hell Is That Noise: The groaning of Drifters is unpleasant enough during the day, but in the dark of a cave it's much worse. The Bells you find down there are horrifying too, sounding halfway between a groan and a distorted bell. The sounds when you find yourself in the Rust World are none too pleasant as well.
  • Low-Tech Spears: One of the first weapons that can be created are spears made from stone such as granite, flint, or obsidian and can be crafted from metal up to bronze meaning that iron age players and further will have to mainly use falxes or bows.
  • Mechanical Abomination: Seems to be the primary flavor of the assorted horrors one will find in the world. Hostile creatures that aren't wild animals are composed of artificial materials, such as Locusts, which are Mechanical Spiders with a thorax that looks like a lightbulb, and its implied the other monsters are artificial, even the Drifters. And then there's the temporal storms, which have massive gears sprout up in the distance.
  • Mighty Glacier: Plate armor is the strongest and most protective armor at the cost of a time consuming smithing process, slowing down the player tremendously, increasing hunger, and reducing healing.
  • Nice Day, Deadly Night: Played with as days aren't completely safe, with wolves roaming forests and drifters residing in dark caves, but night is still much more dangerous.
  • Savage Wolves: Wolves are dangerous enemies in the game, being almost as fast as the player and doing lots of damage.
  • Scenery Porn
  • Suave Saber: A weapon players into the copper age and above can acquire are falxes; swords that have blades which sharply curve inwards.
  • Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: Given the games blocky style, it can come as a surprise to see how deep and complex the mechanics are, such as crop rotation, having to smelt metals and smith them, and having to bake pottery in pit kilns to name a few of what you'll have to accomplish to progress.

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