DayZ and The Day Before, alongside games like Sons of the Forest and Days Gone, have spearheaded a renaissance for hardcore, apocalypse shooters, and now Road to Vostok, an independent survival game that looks to combine the best of the genre, is finally playable as it is scheduled to launch its first-ever demo on Steam.
Set in a sandbox environment based on a border zone between Finland and Russia, Road to Vostok offers realistic shooting and weapon mechanics, survival systems based on managing food, thirst, medical issues, and injuries, and a detailed looting and scavenging system. With a map based on real locations, it challenges you to gather supplies and avoid perma-death as you attempt to cross the aforementioned border and forge a shelter in the eponymous Vostok. Guns are loud. Enemies are lethal. You need to think and move slowly if you want to survive, especially when confronting some of the random, dynamic events, like discovering aeroplane crash sites or being ambushed by organised groups of enemies. The game’s developer – also called Road to Vostok – is detailing every update to weapons, mechanics, and the environment via devlogs, so if you like what you see when you try out the demo, there’s plenty more to learn
Though no release date has been given yet for Road to Vostok, the game’s first demo is scheduled to launch today, September 26, as it has been approved by Steam for Early Access.
Alternatively, you might want to take a look at some of the other best upcoming games for PC, or maybe some of the best indie games. If you can’t wait for Road to Vostok, we also have guides to the best FPS games, including another hardcore survival shooter, Escape from Tarkov.