Horizon Journey has been released into Early Access and has you donning the suit of an astronaut who has to begin to build, gather and explore mars and make it just a bit more hospitable.
You’re first met by a giant resource-filled crater, absolutely teeming with different minerals and rocks, copper, iron, water, you name it you’ll probably find it. At first I thought this was just going to lean into the complexity that was to lie ahead in Horizon Journey, but as soon as you leave the tutorial area you realise that these resources are quite literally everywhere.
At this point we had been armed with some basics, a kind of gathering gun that lets you zap up the many resources available with a small blast, a machine that lets me craft certain objects and items as well as food/drink to keep me sustained and a car outfitted with a crate to gather resources and I assume bring them back. My time with learning the basics was soon over and I headed upwards to explore.
As soon as I hit the edge of the crater and drove my space buggy over those dunes I was met by an ocean of gemstones and minerals gleaming on the surface of a dusty planet. Winds were blowing strong and I was on my way to finding out what Mars had to offer other than just pure resource gathering.
Now I was joined by a friend on this adventure but we appeared to have a lot of issues with desync. At one point I was operating the buggy, we hadn’t said much for a minute and he asked “Are you going to drive yet?”. Turns out I had been driving across the land and fighting the wind but on his end we were static back at the initial crater. These are likely teething issues with it being released in such an early format so we restarted and carried on.
You are given a compass on the top of the screen which seems to have both the objective marked as well as a few other things such as another vehicle. Curiously we wanted to venture out and see what else they could be but opted to find the initial base and try and set up.
After quite a long time we were met with an issue in the form of not being able to find certain resources in the absolutely loaded sands. Yes there were a lot of different resources but finding the one you needed was like looking for a needle in a haystack, this combined with very limited inventory space we were constantly picking up and putting down items trying to get what we needed.
Horizon Journey offers a number of new tools as you progress through objectives such as the constructor and deconstructor, these allow you to both build and tear down new and existing structures. This did help with gathering some of the more necessary materials to build our base and continue our trip across Mars but we were still left juggling our resources.
The sheer scope of the surface of the planet and the vicious weather featured in Horizon Journey did hinder our progress a fair bit, this paired with the constant need for food and water meant that you are bouncing between tasks to keep on top of things quite regularly but this seemed at times more of an annoyance than necessity for survival.
The weather wasn’t the only thing that was holding us back, our one vehicle appeared to Mary Poppins and took off with the wind at times being pushed back relentlessly. This being paired with the rough terrain the vehicle would often get stuck on rocks or debris and thankfully there is an “unstick” button but this did quite regularly send us into the stratosphere giving us a different perspective of the land below.
I think with a more streamlined approach to resource gathering, perhaps something akin to The Last Caretaker where the resources are compiled into stacks of certain resources and broken down from objects could help with Horizon Journey’s inventory storage and allow these resources to also be spent easier, allowing more focus on the mission.
Unfortunately there seemed to be a number of technical issues on release as well such as sound being almost non-existent especially in the storms. At first I thought this was intentional due to it being in space but when you angle the camera underneath the car you can just about hear the storm and the vehicle’s noises.
With it being in such an early format and receiving so many updates almost immediately after release, everything mentioned above should be taken with a pinch of salt as it’s clear the developers are working hard to improve the game and are taking on feedback which is nice to see.
I think with a lot more time and a lot more polish this could shape up to be an interesting resource gathering and building game with a loose overall mission. In its current condition, Horizon Journey definitely needs a bit more work behind the scenes before it can really stand up and show what it has to offer.
If you would like to have a go at Journeying across Mars you can find Horizon Journey on Steam.
