Sandbox survival games are the hot trend right now. Titles like The Forest, 7 Days to Die, The Long Dark, DayZ, State of Decay and the newly released H1Z1 have been very popular, but they all deal with themes of horror/zombies or wilderness survival. As a fan of high fantasy fiction, it’d sure be nice to have a survival game that takes place in a fantasy world.
Thanks to Signal Studios (Toy Soldiers, Ascend: Hand of Kul) and DigitalDNA Games (CastleMiner Z), such a game will soon exist.
Savage Lands takes the survival elements of the aforementioned games and combines them with the open world setting and first-person combat and exploration of a fantasy RPG like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The game will offer crafting and building, single player and massively multiplayer gameplay, permanent death, full freedom of exploration, and more. Are you excited yet? Of course you are!
Signal Studios and DigitalDNA plan to sell Savage Lands as a Steam Early Access title beginning in February, where it is expected to iterate through a 10 month development cycle. If you’d like to register for a shot at an invite to participate in the upcoming alpha testing phase for free, visit www.savagelandsgame.com.
Additional details, per the game’s Steam page, as well as the debut gameplay trailer are posted below.
A New Land, A New Life
Savage Lands is a gritty, brutal, first-person open-world fantasy survival game in which players have only one goal: Stay Alive. Explore a world where days and nights are spent slaughtering vicious creatures, gathering scarce resources, building shelter and crafting powerful weapons needed to survive. Every decision counts, because one mistake can mean permanent death.
Early Release Features
◾Unforgiving Fantasy World – Savage Lands is bursting with a variety of twisted and hostile creatures ranging from the minuscule to gargantuan scattered throughout the island.
◾Brutal Combat – Each encounter, regardless of size and power, has the potential to end fatally. Death is permanent.
◾Freedom to Explore – The world of Savage Lands is yours to explore with no restrictions.
◾Robust Item Crafting – Almost limitless options to create unique armor, weapons, food, and more that will greatly increase your odds of survival.
◾Intuitive Build System – Build unique fortifications sheltering you and your allies from the hostile creatures that roam the island.
◾Day/Night Cycles – Many creatures walk the day, but take refuge from the night as the freezing cold is only one of many things that will tear away at your humanity.
◾Advanced Creature AI – Every creature in Savage Lands will be powered by a unique AI system complete with line of sight, collision avoidance, situational awareness, and pack mentality designed to bring the world to life.
◾Multiplayer – Fight alone or team up with other exiles, hoard crafted supplies and gear, and take refuge from the unforgiving environment. Be on guard, as those you think are friends can quickly turn to foe and loot your rotting corpse.
◾Character Customization – Personalize your character with a variety of features to create a one-of-a-kind look.
◾Persistent Player Profile – Character data is persistent across all servers making it easy to play with friends.
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Matt landed his first gig in the video game review business writing for the now-defunct website BonusStage.com. After the sad and untimely close of BonusStage, the former staff went on to found VGBlogger.com. After a short stint as US Site Manager for AceGamez, Matt assumed full ownership over VGBlogger, and to this day he is dedicated to making it one of the top video game blogs in all the blogosphere.
Matt is a fair-minded reviewer and lover of games of all platforms and types, big or small, hyped or niche, big-budget or indie. But that doesn't mean he will let poor games slide without a good thrashing when necessary! 
