Chaotic Sun. When the incongruous fits perfectly.

Hello ladies, gentlemen, comrades and undecided.

Yes, of course, now all sorts of game releases are booming, well… more or less booming. However, today I want to draw your attention to one little-known project that, with a high, very high probability, has passed you by.

Let’s get started right away. So, according to the plot, the protagonist will have to go to a certain research complex, which was captured by out-of-control androids, combat robots and other zombified victims of experiments. The player will have to explore an intricate network of corridors and tunnels, collect resources and upgrade weapons, attaching various fancy attachments to them, including those that add elemental damage.

So, I understand what you are thinking now, but I meant something else.

But the similarities of these two projects will be discussed below.

So, what would happen if, taking the fourth Fallout as a basis, we mixed elements from Atomic Heart, Dark Souls and classic Japanese survival horror games??

And it would seem that even if one could imagine that individually each of these ingredients can be more or less combined with the other, then it would be quite difficult to assume that all of this together would have any decent appearance. However, this is exactly the case when it seems that the thought of the need for such a game never occurred to you, but once you get it you understand that it turns out to be exactly what you always wanted. But in order.

So, after loading the mod, a certain mysterious boat appears near the settlement of Sommerville Place, ready to sail to a certain Island. And it is no coincidence that the transition point is located so far from the starting location of the game, since it is best to come here with a well-leveled character, moreover, it is better with an emphasis on combat skills, but more on that later.

Having arrived on the island, you can try to talk with a few local residents, although they are not that verbose, and in general this mod is not about dialogues. There will be no quest markers, no quest NPCs, and, in fact, there are no quests themselves as such.

No, instead we have the typical storytelling method used in the Souls series, only even more minimalistic, that is, for the most part, the entire plot is told not even through notes, but through the environment and strange marks called echoes here. But again, I got ahead of myself.

Having realized that, by and large, there is nothing special to do in the settlement, well, except for the opportunity to buy supplies and inspect the player’s new home, which will now become our hub for a long time, we have no choice but to move further into the island along the only path.

Along the way we will come across a bloody tent, in which we can listen to a not very informative recording on a voice recorder, and also pick up the first weapon from the mod.

The forest path turns out to be not that long and quite quickly leads the player to… So, remember, at the beginning I talked about classic survival horror games? Well, now try to guess what awaits us ahead? Neither and of course it’s a mansion.

However, upon entering the https://casino-joy-uk.net/games/ room, you realize that there is only one room in it, namely the one in which the boss lives. And yes, this mod has a lot of difficult boss fights. After defeating the guard, somewhat reminiscent of Gundir from DS3, the player is given a key that allows them to go down into the dungeons, from where the long, really long journey through the tunnels begins.

Okay, I mentioned boss fights, so let’s talk about the game mechanics of the mod. Yes, a lot here is taken from the stuffy series: the aforementioned difficult bosses, the storytelling method, the structure of locations and, even, the ability to summon phantoms. By the way, from time to time the player will be invaded by hunters (of course not players)

But, as I said above, not only can you trace the similarities with the Souls, but also, oddly enough, while passing through it is possible to catch the vibes of Atomic Heart. Yes, there are a lot of android opponents here (although, by the way, the “Vovchiki” were already reminiscent of synths from Fallout), but not only this refers us to the creation of Mandfish. If in Atomics all pumping was tied to polymers, then in the Sun of Chaos a very similar function is performed by ideoplasm. Here you can also improve weapons with various fancy body kits and, moreover, add elemental damage to them. By the way, when such an opportunity arises, I advise you to carry three guns with you at once, so that you can switch between different elements. You can also find unique, legendary body kits that allow you to assemble something absolutely killer from an ordinary revolver.

It looks ugly, but this won’t stop the local bosses from taking out the player’s character with a couple of blows.

Energy cores for crafting can be found in locations from the mod or crafted yourself.

Well, in general, at times the locations from the mod are somewhat reminiscent of the complexes from Atomik, although still more creepy.

Well, just in case, I’ll write this so that there is no misunderstanding. I don’t think that anyone spied or stole anything from anyone. Considering that the first version of the Sun of Chaos was released back in 1919, a game studio, albeit not very well known at that time, would hardly have taken anything from one, far from the most famous mod for the fourth Fallout, fan plugins for which are not very popular in the gaming community, at least compared to Skyrim. Most likely, the fact is that both Atomic Heart and the Sun of Chaos simply had the same source of inspiration, and of course I’m talking about Bioshock. It’s just a funny coincidence that when the Sun passes, it is Atomic that comes to mind, and not their common ancestor.

But, if you remember, at the beginning I also mentioned classic survival horrors, or rather, Japanese survival horrors. And this is a very important caveat. The author of the mod is Japanese, and, accordingly, the Japanese approach to horror and storytelling in general is clearly felt. So, to explain what I mean, let’s get back to the plot.

We settled on the fact that the protagonist came across a mansion in the forest, under which an underground laboratory was discovered, captured by crazy androids, robots and ghouls. Well, it would seem that this is an obvious copy of the Residents. However, the further we continue to dive down this rabbit hole, the less and less the structure of the buildings will lend itself to any logical explanation. At first, the size of the underground complex will grow to some colossal proportions, until the corridors lead the protagonist to an abandoned metro station, a shopping center and, ultimately, a city in which people and androids live side by side.

But even here, no one will explain anything to you; on the contrary, the further you move forward, the more questions about what is happening arises.

Yes, along the way you come across various terminals, strange echoes of thoughts on the floor, but they don’t bring much clarity either. Moreover, everything is aggravated by the fact that starting from the Eternal City location, there are more and more doubts about the reality of what is happening.

Starting from here, the protagonist will encounter praying androids, androids frozen in meditation, androids forever frozen in agony. Moreover, the further you go, the stranger and more psychedelic the locations themselves become, looking less and less like something that could exist in reality.

And from the moment of arrival in the Eternal City, the spirit of Japanese horror begins to be especially felt. Every now and then we will encounter various creepy scenes, gloomy and disgusting locations, strange enemies, and all this, practically, without any explanation of the context, but in those places where we are still given pieces of lore information, they are only informative.

Sometimes they will even show videos, but their content doesn’t help much in understanding what’s going on here.

And it would seem that usually it would be customary to criticize the narrative part of the game for this, but here there can be no doubt that this approach was used intentionally, as in the already mentioned Souls.

Androids take care of flowers in the cemetery of the Eternal City. No one will give any more explanations to the player.

Also, there is one more thing that, under normal circumstances, would cause rejection, but in this case, surprisingly, it looks incredibly organic. What I mean is that a significant part of the gameplay in Sun of Chaos is tied to the ancient mechanics of “saw a button, pressed it, something opened somewhere, now go look for where and what opened”.

And yes, any modern game would be torn to smithereens for something like this, but, as I already said, in this particular mod it looks surprisingly nice. We can say that in this particular case, such mechanics evoke a feeling of nostalgia rather than irritation. And last but not least, this is most likely due to the fact that unlike real retro, where you had to search for another half hour or hour to open the door, here the locations are planned so that you find any opened passage or shore cut quite quickly.

By the way, since I mentioned shortcuts. Firstly, yes they are here, and secondly, a few words about the planning of locations itself. Well, in general, the structure of the dungeons itself is very similar to Dark Souls, there are also the aforementioned shortcuts, in some places passages to the hub location open, and the author of the mod did not forget about the secret walls, and although I didn’t find anything particularly valuable behind them, it’s still nice to always stumble upon a secret. By the way, they were implemented due to the fact that in the mod you can now destroy some objects. And yes, in the Sun of Chaos there is destructibility of the environment.

. and the destruction of the wall

Well, about some more goodies of fashion. A couple of cute android companions with Japanese voice acting are added, a lot of new weapons, armor, consumables and just an incredible number of new recipes, many of which have yet to be found.

Kai’s android companion. (Hairstyle and costume not included)

The following folders are scattered throughout the locations of the mod; they contain recipes for new weapons and consumables.

I admit honestly that I was in a hurry to complete the passage, so I did not particularly carefully explore all the locations, which is why I did not find many modifications, recipes and secret bosses, based on some hints that are given in the mod, and it feels like I missed a significant part of the content during the passage. But even so, the passage from the start to the final boss took me about 10-12 hours, if not more, after searching on YouTube, I saw that some of this version of the mod took eight runs.

And what’s most surprising is that the author of the mod designated the current version as 0.1d, that is, as planned, this is something that is still very far from a full release. And it’s scary to imagine what the Sun of Chaos will look like in the form the creator wants to see it in the release version.

But even now, this is a full-fledged, functional game within a game. And this is the case when I can recommend everyone to get acquainted with the mod, even those who haven’t played the original fourth Fallout itself, because, although it all looks quite strange, perhaps this may turn out to be exactly the case when you understand that you always wanted something like this, although you yourself never suspected it.

Although, it is still worth expressing some concerns. Considering the fate of many large-scale mods for Fallout, and the colossal plans of the author, there is a considerable probability that we will never see the final, release version of the Sun of Chaos.