Bask in the sun… and risk getting the meanest sunburn of your life. Hello Sunshine is an impressive step up from the usual post-apocalypse survival RPG formula, playing with some clever ideas around scorching sunlight, blissful shade, and the cycle of day and night.
I previewed a hands-off, pre-alpha slice of Hello Sunshine’s story-driven, single-player campaign with the developers at Red Thread Games, many of whom are veteran developers in the narrative gaming world (think Dreamfall, The Longest Journey, and The Secret World).
Hello Sunshine is looking extremely polished for something built by just seven people, and puts a cool twist on what “suspense” means in the genre. From the extreme, sizzling heat of day to uncovering lore during frigid nights – here is why I believe Hello Sunshine’s future is looking bright.
Coming in hot
The team didn’t mention any sort of inspiration from the Fallout series, but right from the start screen there’s no denying the visual parallels – a skeleton in a folding camping chair, still clutching a drink as if the world ended mid-sip. Pressing the start button, the player character stumbles past, immediately launching you into this weird wasteland world. It wasn’t clear to me whether she was a preset character or customizable, but (in this preview, at least) she appeared to be the silent type.
In this cruel and scorching desert, it’s clear that she is already suffering from the early symptoms of heatstroke, and she’s also very sad about finding a water bottle that turns out to be empty. This scene is the introduction to Hello Sunshine’s heat and thirst mechanics – a delicate balancing act of avoiding collapse from dehydration or slow-cooking in the harsh sunlight. Robots aside, the sun is essentially your biggest enemy (but with ray tracing).
Ruined buildings yield water and other supplies that help you maintain a survivable body temperature, but shadows also play a huge role. If you’re roasting, resting in shade can keep your temperature down. And almost immediately, you’ll meet the most interesting shadow dynamic of all – Hello Sunshine’s other “main character,” who is a skyscraper-sized robot that seems to have a clearer idea of where it’s going than you do.
Chasing shadows
This metallic gentle giant is, like you, wandering through these badlands. It kind of ignores you in the beginning, but you’ll be grateful for the enormous shadow it casts as it moves, shielding you from UV-based harm as you follow it along sand dunes and amongst rusted shipping containers. And no, it won’t wait patiently for you if you saunter off; you’ll need to keep up with its pace if you don’t want to end up dying humiliatingly of sunburn.
This is survival through solar instinct and (coining an ahem hot new term here) shade management, not health bars alone – creating an urgency that adds an unconventional form of suspense to your strange journey.
The landscape, of course, hides precious resources – but you’ll need to strategize and carefully time your brief detours from the robot’s shadow. Spend too much time dilly-dallying and the robot may move too far ahead, meaning you won’t make it back before your heat meter runs out. The sun’s path, from afternoon to sunset, was particularly brilliant – with shadows lengthening or shrinking as the day progresses, you’ll need to adapt your decisions about how far you wander.
You can expect that you’ll find more awesome loot the farther you stray, of course. No word yet on whether loot will be randomized each playthrough, but I’m hoping that will be the case. Whatever ingredients you’re able to grab could limit what you’re able to craft – and add further challenge, based on what gear you’re able to make and how that may limit your desired playstyle.
Bringin’ on the heat
It’s not all sunbeams, however; Hello Sunshine does include combat, which you can shape according to your desired playstyle. Being noisy and aggressively guns-out (or, more accurately, bows-out), for instance, will probably attract even more enemies – and more scavengeable loot from their remains.
Or you can go for more defensive options, potentially even avoiding head-on conflict. I didn’t really get a sense of what a stealthier playthrough might look like, but I’m hoping the confrontational-to-avoidant spectrum is wide.
Your enemies, by the way, are more robots – definitely angrier than your giant friend – and they curiously seem to have taken on forms of the fleshy species that I assume were otherwise wiped out during the apocalypse. A little metal jackal will snap at your heels, for example, or a hulking robot crab may try to skewer you with its giant claw.
Your character’s bow is one of the primary weapons. At first, it doesn’t look like much – kind of pitiful against giant armored bots, really – but you’ll be able to upgrade it throughout the game and craft better ammo for it, such as explosive arrows.
Little events occur here and there to keep your journey interesting – like a distant airdrop of unspecified items, or a sandstorm that gives you brief respite from the sun but also reduces visibility, making it easier for you to lose your robot friend. Many of these events are procedural, hopefully unlocking varied experiences with subsequent playthroughs.
Befriending the sleeping giant
Conveniently, your enormous robot companion has a circadian rhythm: once the sun sets, it will take a break to recharge. In the preview, this happened at the remains of a Sunshine service station – owned by the ominous corporation whose shareholders, presumably, voted to min-max the humanity-destruction budget.
The service station is basically your inexplicably cheerful crafting workshop, complete with happy tinkling music. You can take a breather here, check out your loot from the day, “recycle” unwanted items, and use the parts to 3D-print new gear – from health packs to flashlights or even new shoes. You can also mend the wear-and-tear wrought on your gear throughout the day. Did you rip up your pants sliding down dunes butt-first? Repair ‘em here.
The Sunshine building also acts as a robot maintenance site, allowing you to make repairs or upgrade the big guy. As I mentioned previously, it pretty much ignores you in the early stages – but if you impress it enough with your ongoing care, it may begin to care about you too.
You won’t want to stray far at night, though, as it gets chilly. The preview didn’t demonstrate any “night runs,” but that’s apparently something you’ll be able to do, which could be a nice (or fraught) accompaniment to the day journeys – no word on how optional these runs may be, or whether they’ll offer different rewards (or even plot developments).
Most of the story unfolds during these night sequences; start a campfire and strangers just may show up. The preview didn’t show interactions with any of these strangers, but they may or may not be very nice people. Regardless of whether they turn out to be friends or meanies, they will unveil parts of the Sunshine corporation’s mysterious origins.
In short: shade wins
The Sunshine rest stop was where our preview ended – though we were told that the player would progress through different biomes over the following in-game days. Since I only saw the desert area, the wildly different weather conditions of various other environments may really transform what to expect in the lead-up to release.
Though I only saw part of the single-player campaign, there will also be co-op (split-screen and online); buddy up, and you will both experience a reframed version of the story. It’s recommended you do this after the main campaign so you can get the full story behind whatever the heck is going on in this world.
Hello Sunshine is the studio’s first foray into both the RPG and survival genres, so will their narrative pedigree see it through? I like their chances based on what I’ve seen so far. Everyone loves a good “evil corporation” story, and I honestly still can’t get over how cool those dawn-to-dusk shadow mechanics are (I can imagine other game designers thinking, “Damn, why didn’t I think of that?!”).
If your overall question about Hello Sunshine is “Does it look good?” then yes, it is very promising. And if it’s “Will I melt to death holding a handmade bow?” the answer is still yes – but enthusiastically.
