Dogsled survival adventure Arctico leaves Early Access in February

Arctico was previously an Early Access survival game called Eternal Winter, but it ditched all the bleak inevitability of starving to death in the snow in favor of becoming a relaxing exploration game. Whereas in Eternal Winter you might have had to butcher your huskies for food, in Arctico you can pet them, and if they don't get fed they simply grow tired and slow down. Rather than being another brutal game of staring at a hunger meter, it became a cosy game of building an Arctic research base between meditative journeys by sled, kayak, or glider.

Last year, Andy Kelly played a then-current version and said, "There's something very appealing about Arctico's wintry terrain and use of colour. It's a pretty game, but clearly still in development, with some clunky, robotic animations. Still, it's a compelling place to explore. You'll see the outline of something on the horizon, ride over with your dogs, and find something interesting: the abandoned camp of previous explorers, perhaps, where you'll find excerpts from their diaries and items to scavenge."

Arctico is currently available on Steam Early Access. According to the latest trailer, it'll be departing Early Access in February of 2022. Said trailer also shows off activities like kayak-fishing, plant-growing, star-gazing, and a whole lot of chill sledding across the snow with four huskies who I'm sure are all very good dogs.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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