Kong: Survivor Instinct is a 2.5D action game set in the King Kong universe. The game is the result of the collaboration between 7LEVELS and Legendary Entertainment to enrich the Monsterverse franchise.
The story of Kong: Survivor Instinct begins with the attacks of the Titans on an American City. Kong is among the attackers and the Monarch tries to evacuate the population to limit the casualties.
Our main character is David Martin, a man who has lost contact with his daughter, and fearing the terrible for her, he embarks on a long journey through the ruins of a city that has collapsed under the Titans’ attacks to find his beloved descendant.
During our investigation, we discovered that a bioterrorist group and a device called ORCA Σ were involved in the Titans’ attack.
Kong: Survivor Instinct, the Titans on your side
Kong: Survivor Instinct is a 2.5D side-scrolling action game. Each level is large enough to require multiple teleportation points.
The game focuses on exploring levels to find David’s daughter. In order to do this, we have to collect clues about her job and her location. The research is not so easy, many times we find our way blocked by, for example, a collapsed building, so to clear our way we have to collect acoustic bio waves with ORCA Σ, once we have collected enough waves we can command a Titan to clear our way.
Kong: Survivor Instinct is not just about exploration, in fact during our findings we snooped around the Hyena business and stole their ORCA Σ prototype. So Hyena, the bioterrorist group involved in the Titan attack, are pursuing us to take back their device and leave no witnesses.
Fight or… Fight
The combat system in Kong: Survivor Instinct is not exciting. There are only a few enemies in each level, and they always come in pairs. In the beginning, the enemies only have melee attacks, then one comes with a melee weapon and the other with a handgun.
We can hit them with our melee, a long pipe or a hammer, and we can shoot them with our handgun. But bullets are in short supply, and we need them to open some doors, so we have to save them.
Our other alternative is to engage in close-combat combat. We can make normal and heavy attacks, and block the enemy’s melee attacks. But if an enemy has a gun, we can’t lie down to avoid getting shot. Our only option is to grab the other enemy and use him as a human shield. This is not as easy as it sounds, and we often end up getting hit and shot at the same time.
We can’t slide or roll to avoid being hit. So after many encounters the strategy is: take a few steps back, wait for the enemy to attack, block and attack. A bit boring and frustrating. Also, we can’t avoid the fight.
Final thoughts
Kong: Survivor Instinct expands the Monsterverse franchise and adds a new story to it. The graphics are good, immersive and give the right mood to the story.
It can be played on the Steam Deck OLED, but we found it badly optimised, we lowered the details and resolution to get more fps and less frame time, but the movements still feel laggy.
Due to its gameplay style, optimisation for handheld consoles is a must in our opinion.
The level design is good and challenging, but the combination of a poor combat system and laggy movement makes exploring and platforming unpleasant.
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