Desires of adventure and discovery are ingrained in human nature, from the depths of the ocean to the furthest reaches of the cosmos but let’s face it, only a small percentage of us will ever walk on the Moon, get close to Mars' surface, or even set up an advanced colony on an alien planet. Well it’s a good thing we can get a taste of this in Life Beyond in really enjoyable and fast-paced action.

Life Beyond is a P2E game built on the Ethereum Blockchain and is Darewise Entertainment’s latest Project. Darewise Entertainment is part of the Animoca Brand family. Composed of experienced game developers like Benjamin Charbit, an ex-assassin creed game director and former Ubisoft producer and designer. The early access of this game was released June 29, 2022. Meanwhile, the full alpha of the game was released July 6, 2022.  

Life Beyond is a sci-fi multiplayer adventure game with a third person perspective. Players assume the role of Pioneers in order to control the alien planet Dolos. Upon discovering an inhabitable planet in another solar system, humans called for the rest of humanity to follow them while they put up the colony's equipment. The task is far from easy since the planet already hosts creatures that aren’t as welcoming as the humans thought. Aside from discovering other types of alien life in Dolos there will also be mysterious ruins to explore.

Once the game starts, the player’s character will spawn in a customizable apartment in one of Dolos’ bases. This is where the player will keep all their equipment, weapons, and other resources. The player will then engage in crafting, building, supplying and expeditions to establish economic systems. Expeditions are like quests which the players fulfill in order to obtain rewards. Expeditions vary from shooting down aliens to solving complex puzzles. There will also be regions that the player can explore in their journey towards colony expansion.           

The alpha version of Life Beyond offers rewards to its players in the form of $DOL tokens. There will be two pools with more than a million tokens each. The first pool is a raffle. Each time a player participates in the alpha and completes objectives, they receive reward points that may be exchanged for raffle tickets. The second pool is a leaderboard. In the final content pack, the Life Beyond team will introduce a new difficulty level called Nightmare. Players who complete solo missions on Nightmare  earn points towards a global leaderboard and the top 10 players will receive $DOL.       

Despite the fact that the game's official video only features fighting, Life Beyond offers land and shop ownership. They also plan to open up new regions to settle in as the game advances. It will feature crafting and customization too. With that, players can expect to see more of Life Beyond and its core gameplay features over the next few months. Life Beyond is just like other play-to-earn MMORPGs, since this project seems to also promise everything a player could want and more. But the real question is whether the developers can deliver on all their promises.

Feedback from the alpha testers of Life Beyond say that the server seems to be under heavy stress because there are times that the global chat doesn't seem to work and it’s difficult to actually start a mission. It's also much easier to enter solo due to the lack of people for teaming and limited features due to that. Even the character creation didn’t provide enough options to be considered character creation. Other feedback also said that Life Beyond is currently the skeleton of a decent third person shooter. Hence, this gives me the impression that currently the alpha is still barebones. 

While it’s true that Life Beyond is nowhere near polished, the level design based on videos I saw were unique and will surely give players a lot of fun while exploring. Overall, the visuals are quite stunning. I just hope that they will also offer a gorgeous paradise lush with glowing trees, or a frozen tundra with recurring toxic storms like in “No Man’s Sky”. I really want each region in Life Beyond to boast its own unique aesthetic and terrain that will be eye-catching.

Overall, the alpha version of Life Beyond currently has a lot of problems but it certainly has potential because I can already see sparks in it from various gameplay footage. So although Life Beyond has a long way to go before reaching beta and beyond, I can already tell that there might be something worthwhile to play on the horizon.