Steam Library: Sheltered 2

Distant 2016. A small entertainment about life in a post-apocalyptic world called Sheltered appears in digital stores. There, we did our best to brighten the life of a young family of four (and, it seems, one pet) who found themselves in a relatively cozy bunker in the nuclear wasteland.

Well, the game happened and it happened. Who knows how many small indie projects with pixel graphics, a beloved setting, and not very interesting gameplay mechanics are stored in gamers’ memories. We played and forgot.

Turns out, we didn’t forget. Not long ago, developers from Unicube studio released a full-fledged sequel with the non-trivial name Sheltered 2.

Could it be that the original was so commercially successful back then? Maybe we missed something? I must admit, what interested me in Sheltered 2 was not so much the new game itself, but rather the question of where the second part could have come from for a small and, honestly, not very good creation in the first place.

The answer, as I should have already gotten used to, lay in the question itself. Sheltered 2 was released precisely because Sheltered 1 was mediocre. The second part is essentially the same entertainment as the original Sheltered. Only in the sequel, there is more… um, game, and thorough work has been done to fix the mistakes. Someone had enough passion to revive an unsuccessful project and try to bring its quality at least up to the level of the initial concept. Or maybe even better.

Enter the bunker twice

In general, yes, civilization recently broke down under the weight of its own stupidity, and now people are surviving however they can. Our trio of randomly generated characters at the beginning of the game are doing better at this than many others. We stumbled upon the hatch of an empty but fully functional bunker, and from now on we can try to build a decent human society there. Through building new rooms, making spiked baseball bats, and raiding abandoned supermarkets, of course.

A question to ponder: what is the first game that comes to mind when you look at screenshots of Sheltered 2? My answer is Fallout Shelter. This miracle that came to us from the mobile world seems to play on the same notes. Post-apocalypse, side view, recruiting, building rooms, the morale of the inhabitants, raids, crafting.

In general, I fell for Sheltered at the time because I wanted an addictive gameplay experience like Fallout Shelter, but in the format of a human game from my library. Without free-to-play gimmicks like 24-hour journeys of dummies through the desert and back, without microtransactions, without all the nonsense that is added to such projects purely to squeeze extra money out of us.

Wouldn’t that be great? Unfortunately, both the original Sheltered and Sheltered 2 are no longer FS, but Sims. We are no longer dealing with rooms here, but with their inhabitants, who manage to be very hungry, tired, dirty, and busy picking each other’s noses at the same time.

And here, critical furniture constantly breaks, so we keep one eye on Mike’s bladder and the other scanning the bunker for imminent malfunctions.

Time to praise the sequel. I couldn’t stand the first part for more than two hours, precisely because I quickly got tired of taking the characters to the toilet one by one. My soul wanted to build a bunker and go on surface expeditions, but my wards could only lie on the concrete floor, assume the fetal position, and pray for the gamer to say, “It’s time to eat, or you’ll die of hunger.” Today, progress has reached the point where we order the characters through a simple menu to remember their self-preservation instincts. Dear sim, are you 50% tired? Don’t wait for a command, go to sleep.

However, there is still absolutely no pleasure in playing mother-daughter. After settling down as best as possible, you sit and watch the hunger/cold/other sliders, waiting for the happy hour.

And it finally arrives! As soon as at least one character becomes happy enough to obediently go on a marauding walk, they must be immediately released from the bunker because, firstly, food and building materials tend to run out, secondly, the sim will live an independent life for some time, and thirdly, exploring the surroundings will pleasantly diversify the gameplay.

Be careful, marauders

The very first more or less thorough sortie shows that in Sheltered 2 there has been not only a change from budget pixels to budget polygons, but also an intriguing geopolitical rearrangement. People remembered that the larger the collective, the greater the strength, and began to gather back into whole factions. It turns out that our territory is around the bunker, and then various “Black Guys,” “Desert Knights,” and other randomly generated communities, companies, and gangs run the show. Some of them want to be friends with us, some not so much.

Naturally, everyone around is arguing, fighting, making deals, and arguing again. Accordingly, our raider groups will periodically have to invade foreign territory, negotiate with uncertain outcomes, and wield knives and baseball bats on other people’s heads.

I would like to write that turn-based combat adventures and faction quests in Sheltered 2 are a novelty, but I vaguely remember that in the first part the characters had some kind of strength and endurance points, and there was already a radio transmitter in the underground shelter. It’s just that, apparently, in the couple of hours it took the original game to put me to sleep, I didn’t get to them. In other words, let’s give the sequel a big plus – S2 seemed good enough to explore all its mechanics.

Exploring the local map is traditionally fun. It’s always great to wander through empty cells and finally find an abandoned sawmill and take everything that is not nailed down. Our fools, in general, live for these reliable New Year’s trees with lots of gifts. Oh, what excitement – to trespass on someone else’s territory, hit the only passerby from another faction on the head with a brick, take what seems to be the owner’s belongings, return and build a new room with a good punching bag!

The new increased health risks for the fools are compensated by their endless influx. Somewhere around once every fifteen minutes, random travelers start banging on the bunker door, ready to join our beautiful underground tribe.

But for some reason, instead of giving us the opportunity to send recruits somewhere for supplies – you know, so that they can prove their suitability – the game, on the contrary, forces the gamer to prove that they are a good manager and caring sim owner. The newcomers will sit in the bunker without leaving and watch how often they are fed, if there is water in the shower, and overall, if they have joined a good company. They are not loyal to us yet, you see, they can go on a reconnaissance mission and not return.

I want to go on vacation

Life was going on in Sheltered 2 in its own way, but somewhere closer to the third party and the tenth hour of gameplay, I suddenly caught myself thinking that I didn’t want to let any more orphans in. I should develop underground life, increase the scale and duration of expeditions, fight harder with neighbors, but I don’t want to, and that’s it.

Unfortunately, in the end, S2 suffers from an old routine overdose, just in a slightly different way. Every first dummy no longer requires tedious care, but there are now many dummies. Keeping track of all the bunker residents and fixing the endlessly arriving household items – it’s just lazy.

After the revelation that came down on me, I led my wards by the nose for about an hour somewhere. During this time, I finally convinced myself that I am ready to subscribe to no more than five or six sims for the delights of decorating my personal Shelter and traveling to post-apocalyptic desert landmarks. The initial passion has faded, only routine remains. Meanwhile, the game continued to push recruits and hinted in every way that I should expand already, that I have new blueprints, and the characters have improved, and the map is slightly further explored. Things are moving, don’t slow down!

I decided to go on an indefinite vacation instead. The lazy person didn’t know what to do.