One of Steam Next Fest's biggest survival games makes a compelling promise: "Imagine DayZ or Rust but you're a duck"
Jun. 15, 202410 million ducks are hunted every single year… it’s time to change that
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“Imagine DayZ or Rust but you’re a duck,” is the irresistible premise behind one ofSteam Next Fest’s biggest survival games.
Duckside is the survival sandbox that’s trying to teach ducks worldwide some self-defense. In the same way thatPalworlduses the ‘Pokemon-but-with-guns’ premise to its advantage, Duckside has all the scavenge-y-craft-o-survival bits you’d expect from the genre, but this time it’s the ducks that have guns. Want to make your game stand out? Just give your pets some deadly weapons.
“Play alone or create a flock with other ducks to build, explore, fight, and survive together,” the blurb continues. “Ducks are fiercely territorial, so encounters with opposing ducks can and will often result in some feathers being ruffled.”
Duckside has a free demo available now as part ofSteam Next Fest, and it’s already the fifth most popular game from the entire event based on daily active players. Jumping into the game myself, it’s not too hard to see why. Duckside might have fairly standard bones, but the allure of being able to fly anywhere makes this one stand out. It can be a chill time, gliding across lakes with mates, if you want it to be. But that added verticality also makes infiltrating enemy bases a very different type of shooter.
For more, check out the10 best survival gamesyou can play right now.
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Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.
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