In the year 3600CE, nothing is left. Earth has returned to the peaceful natural realm it once was. With all of its conflicts and past afflictions, the human race was driven to the brink of extinction, and the Earth was almost lost forever. The only things left from the old world are ruins from the past. As humanity learns from its past mistakes, they task every new soul who reaches adulthood to become one with nature and learn to survive from the land itself. Retreat to Enen is an upcoming Survival game like no other. Developed by Head West and published by Freedom Games, Retreat to Enen is set to release on PC, Xbox Series X, and PS5 on the 1st of August.

Retreat to Enen is a survival game at its core, but the game itself is more of an educational device, showing how beautiful the world around us is; the nature, the atmosphere, and the ambiance, and if we were to carry down the path we are, what we could, and probably will have to start doing to keep it that way. Now, if you are expecting survival as in 7 Days to Die or Rust, you may be disappointed, as it isn’t one of those hardcore survival-type games.

Yes, you do have to watch out for wildlife, poisons, hunger, thirst, and water-borne viruses, but it is a lot more forgiving. At times I even forgot I was poisoned, and what felt like 5 minutes later, I had my Overseer tell me I had low health, but I still had enough time to scramble around and collect rocks and sticks to create a fire and cooking pot, and then cook an antivenom compound with what seemed like 10 HP left. If I was unprepared in other titles like I wasn’t in this, I would have more than likely died. Death in Retreat to Enen isn’t death. If you were to perish, you get medically extracted to retry your ventures, or you can simply reload your previous save. There are no respawns.

After you arrive on the Island of Enen, you are tasked with a few things to help you get started, ie. craft a shelter, drink water, and find some food, but that is basically all the tutorial makes you do. I wish it had of told me I could turn on a flashlight using L, or even that I could activate quantum mode to mine or harvest animals. Instead, I fumbled with the torch, and on a second playthrough, I saw in a small chatbox displaying that to enter quantum mode I had to press X or hold R and select it through the wheel.

The main precipice that Retreat to Enen revolves around is meditation. You need to meditate to keep your spirit up and to progress throughout the game. Enen is comprised of 3 different biomes, each more difficult than the last. To progress to the next biome and eventually be allowed off of the island of Enen, you have to meditate at 3 separate ruins on each map, but you can only meditate at ruins once per day.

The ruins’ meditation domes are gold, compared to the standard blue meditation domes littered around the biome. The first biome, being an island, is extremely low risk with no natural predators, while the second biome moves you to a forest with bears and wolves, and the third biome, being the most difficult, moves you to a snow-covered mountain, where you will have to battle the elements and predators lurking within. The ruins can be a task in themselves to find. With no map and built-up environments, it can take a while if played normally, however, you can just speed run and find them relatively easily.

Not having a map makes the discovery of these ruins a little more difficult. Instead of being able to navigate off of a map, you have to do it ye olde fashioned way and work off landmarks and the land itself. Base building is non-existent in the beginning, although you get a few survival crafting recipes, but, after every ruin you meditate at, more and more crafting/building options are unlocked. I’ve seen some pretty cool designs made as well, however, my creative flair only allowed me to conjure a Minecraft 2×2 dirt house. I prefer to live in a shelter with everything outside anyhow.

The landscapes and audio within the game had me hooked, with beautifully sculpted biomes, and the addition of the ruins made for a surreal experience. From the sandy beachfront of Enen Island and the great redwood forests, the landscapes stood out to me the most. Combined with a few natural audio effects from what I believe to be the Morepork and Tui, both iconic NZ songbirds, it felt like I had stepped off my back doorstep and entered the great Kiwi bush. Built-in Unreal Engine I wasn’t disappointed by the graphical prowess of the biomes. Everything just looked stunning and natural.

It’s crazy to imagine a world void of people and in its natural state, and I believe Retreat to Enen did a splendor job at envisioning this. Running an Asus Strix 3070TI, 32GB RAM, and an AMD 5800X, running the game on max settings in both 1080P and 1440P, I was hitting 180FPS – amazing for how populated the biomes were with all the props and objects, I was expecting the FPS to be much lower. Keeping in mind my specs far exceed the recommended 10GB RAM, a 4GB Nvidia 970/ Radeon RX580, and a 3.2GHz CPU, to run a game with such a busy landscape, I would have at least expected a 10 series, or even low 20 series GPU. It just goes to show how well optimized this game is.

Retreat to Enen is an absolute gem. It’s Head West’s first game and such a rare experience at that. For anyone wanting to pick up and play a relaxing game where it doesn’t really matter what they do, Retreat to Enen is the game for them. You can just load up and chill in the surreal environment, build a little house and survive. When it’s time for a change of scenery, or find more of a challenge, you can easily move on to the next area. The possibilities are endless, although the game is very easy to put down and forget, and it holds almost no replayability. Retreat to Enen feels like a one-and-done game where the first experience is the greatest, and after that, you have no further use for the game until you find yourself sitting at the home screen with nothing to play.

Written by: Bigfoot