AWAY: The Survival Series Critic Reviews

Away: The Survival Series sounds great on paper, as its nature documentary format gives it a charming quality you wouldn’t expect to work. And yet it does, to some extent. At the same time, its execution could still use a lot of work, leading to an adventure that tries to impress, but misses the mark due to some technical shortcomings that mar the experience. Its soundtrack, narration, and surprisingly detailed world make it worth checking out, but you probably won’t stick around for the next episode if things stay the way they are.

The beauty of Away: The Survival Series isn't the gameplay but the journey itself. While it has it's problems with bugs, the environment itself is lovely and the narration and musical score at least give the short expedition a quiet elegance.

AWAY is a beautiful and educational adventure like no other, but major gameplay mechanics are poorly executed and take away from it being a standout title in the survival genre.

The Survival Series is a successful attempt to transfer the format of a science documentary to a video game platform. The science and documentary part is excellent, but the video game part would need some improvements.

While AWAY: The Survival Series nails its nature doc narration conceit, it doesn’t have anything particularly enlightening to say. The game does sometimes succeed as a straightforward cinematic adventure, but rough controls and a general lack of polish derail the rollercoaster far too often. Playing AWAY can be compelling at times, particularly if you’re an animal lover, but you might find queueing up a few episodes of Planet Earth more fulfilling.

There are a lot of problems with AWAY: The Survival Series from the controls to the plot and the good graphics can't save the game.

I wish I had more positive points to speak about, but AWAY: The Survival Series just isn’t that fun to play, and being a video game this is one of the most important aspects for the developers to nail. The experience feels unnaturally empty and shallow, and whilst the good intentions are there, the execution makes it a hard title to recommend spending money on, at least in its current state which feels like an early access title, despite it being a proper release. If this title piques your interest, I would suggest waiting to see what the developers end up fixing and tweaking as they have promised to fix multiple issues and provide constant updates to offer a more polished title.

Buggy, broken, and boring, Away: The Survival Series is awful all around.