Mobile games are hard to make successful because in the throng of literally millions of other flops that both big name developers and indie basement studios pump out in an attempt to climb over one another, it becomes increasingly difficult to find that hidden gem in it all. But one game has stood out entirely because of it's genre and complex, yet successful mechanics. The nuts and bolts of Durango are the most complicated than in any other mobile game I have played. Between logistics and preparation, the player must make strategic decisions in everything he does. Whether it's eating a berry or hunting a dinosaur well above your level, your survival must be well planned.
Durango is an open world, MMORPG dino-survival game that takes on the genre head first. For a mobile game, it boasts beautiful and large islands to explore, each possessing a certain type of environment that the player must adjust to. Created by Nexon Korea Corp. and developed by What! Studio, Durango was launched as a Beta last year, inviting players to test out the game using a code received via email. And although this game is a first for it's platform, it shares a lot characteristics of the PC game in the same genre, Ark: Survival Evolved.
While the dinosaurs are a given, the sandbox building element of Durango is a bit more complicated. Just as in Ark, you must learn a skill in order to be able to craft a certain item, yet Durango makes the player think before he spends his skill points because skills are interdependent of one another. When trying to build a small kiln, I realized that I not only needed a high crafting ability but also farming skills in order to collect the materials needed to make the kiln. I had to ration out my skill points, knowing that I couldn't splurge. However, the game can be forgiving since you are allowed to redistribute points in different skill trees for a limited amount of time each day.
Unlike Ark, where hunting is approached fairly quickly, needing only a two to three level progression to begin, Durango demands time and a big workload to level six before you can safely hunt the weakest dinosaur in the game. But this is because the game takes getting used to. Keeping your hunger meter full is the second most important part of your survival, whereas, fishing is a time killer or fun side quest in most other RPGs.
In Durango, it is of the utmost importance. Gathering, building a fire pit for, and cooking fish and berries takes time and energy, both of which runs out quickly if not done correctly. However, berries become your best friend since they have the best energy turnover. They cost the least to gather and give back almost ten times the energy.
One mechanic Durango takes from Ark that is shortened is the taming process. Instead of drudging through the process of taming different ancient animals like in Ark - You would need to find enough berries to make a tranquilizer, which then in turn would require you to create a weapon to administer it, then when pumping enough of the serum into the animal, you would finally have to feed it enough to tame it. Given the more flexibility that a console or a PC has compared to a mobile device, shortening the taming procedure is a reasonable thing to do.
But that doesn't mean it gets any easier. To tame an animal in Durango, you must first have a high enough Survival level, which is obtained solely through leveling your character, then invest two points each into the taming skills, which only increases your probability of catching the animal rather than a guarantee. That means you would need to build a good enough weapon -- which at higher levels, requires more materials and higher levels of skills -- to disable the digital beast at a low enough health to gain the tame option to capture it. It basically borrows the Pokémon method of "battle and catch".
Yet, while there is no easy way around things, there is a Laissez faire-style economic system that drifts away from Ark. Despite having two currencies in Durango, only one is exclusive to your character that cuts down the time it requires to finish building structures or leveling up skill trees. The other can be circulated between other players through a market system that everyone can access to buy and sell their creations or materials gathered. The player who owns a Trading post can set their own price for their goods. You can even trade tamed animals.
The most profound and empowering element of the game is the ability to mark a section of land to sanction as your own. Using the same market currency, you can expand your land for twice the original size, with the cost doubling the previous price for each expansion purchased. And while you can move your plot, you would need to move everything built within in it as well, which fetches a hefty price. I became my own real estate agency, trying to find the best piece of land with running water and a good supply of berry bushes.
The dedication What! Studio invested into Durango rivals Ark in most aspects and is especially impressive because of it's platform. Almost all of what is borrowed is developed into a cohesive and unique game that is overwhelmingly fun. What lays ahead for the game is up to the beta players and Nexon Korea Corp. but hopefully, the fruits of their labor will grow further into a delicious energizing berry.
