Neolithic Dawn on Meta Quest is an ambitious, immersive survival experience that drops players into a meticulously crafted recreation of 10,000 BC North America. Developed by James Bellian and published under the Neolithic banner, this VR title is clearly built with passion and a strong vision. While it’s still in early access, there’s already a compelling foundation in place, offering a raw and often brutally demanding journey through prehistoric wilderness. That journey, however, isn’t without its growing pains.
The game opens with a character creation system that’s more impressive than you might expect, especially in a genre that often skips over personalization. You build your Neolithic avatar with all the details you want, setting the tone for a deeply personal survival adventure. From there, you’re pushed into a dangerous open world where hunting, crafting, and exploration become your only lifelines. Every action – whether it’s shaping flint into tools, taming animals, or climbing cliff faces – is handled through hands-on physics-based interaction, lending the world a tactile realism that VR is uniquely suited for.
Despite this immersive setup, Neolithic Dawn isn’t particularly friendly to newcomers. The tutorial is minimal, leaving players to piece things together through trial and error. Simple actions like making a torch or finding medicine aren’t explained well, and essential materials like sticks can be hard to locate – or glitch through the environment at times. Some players may enjoy the unstructured approach, especially those familiar with (VR) survival titles like Green Hell, but others might find the early hours frustratingly opaque.
The game’s mechanics are broad and intriguing, with a focus on realism that includes monitoring hunger, thirst, warmth, sleep, and health. These survival meters deplete quickly, perhaps too quickly, forcing players to constantly juggle basic needs before they can explore or build. The game’s permadeath system, where you return as your character’s offspring to reclaim your fallen gear, adds an unusual narrative flavor and stakes to the gameplay. It’s a clever mechanic, but like many of the game’s systems, it could benefit from more polish, difficulty balancing and clearer integration.
Visually, Neolithic Dawn is a mixed bag. The scale of the environment is impressive, and the freedom to climb just about anything gives the world a sense of verticality and discovery. But the graphical quality is uneven, with some flat textures and awkward animations pulling you out of the otherwise immersive setting. Sound design is similarly functional – there are atmospheric audio cues and ambient tracks that shift depending on your surroundings, but the style of voice language (gibberish) feels out of place and can detract from the atmosphere for some players.
The game’s technical performance is also a sticking point. The inventory system – specifically the backpack – can be finicky, sometimes making it frustrating to store or retrieve items. Combat and animal harvesting are still prone to bugs, and pathfinding occasionally leads to moments where you’re stuck in terrain and forced to jump your way out. That said, even with these issues, the moment-to-moment gameplay has a compelling loop once things click.
A particularly fun aspect is the ability to tame animals and summon them when needed – a feature that adds both charm and utility. Combined with the sprawling world and the ability to swim, climb, and explore caves, there’s a real sense of discovery. Online co-op for up to four players is already integrated, although its stability and usefulness remain to be fully tested and we haven’t tried it out yet.
Ultimately, Neolithic Dawn is an early access title brimming with potential. It doesn’t yet have the refinement of its more established peers, and its difficulty curve is steep due to a lack of guidance and occasional mechanical roughness. But for those who enjoy survival games with immersive systems and are willing to dig into a world with minimal hand-holding, there’s something rewarding here. With continued development, bug fixes, and better onboarding, this could become a standout title in the VR survival space. As it stands now, it’s a flawed but promising expedition into the stone age.
Score: 7.0/10
Press Play Media 