Once Human seasons: What is lost, what carries over, and what changes

Once Human is doing something a little different with its seasons, leaving players to restart essentially, every time the game wipes. It has good intentions, and honestly, I’m not completely against it after getting into the ins and outs of how it works. Here is how the seasons in Once Human will work, what you can carry over, the changes that will be implemented, and what is lost.

How do Once Human seasons work?

Once Human is trying something quite interesting with their seasons. Every six weeks, the servers will wipe, and it’s time to move to another one. Why, you may ask? Well, each server provides a different scenario.

The servers have different missions, different storylines, and completely unique experiences. This will hopefully encourage players to branch out and experience everything the game has to offer over its runtime.

There are further benefits to this constant server wipe and seasonal content, too. If you happen to have joined a server your friends aren’t on, this will be your chance to join them with all of you starting at the same base level.

So, each season can bring a whole new scenario, with new players entering different areas. However, if you have invested a lot of time and effort into kitting out your player base, you might be asking, was it all for nothing?

What do you keep and lose between seasons?

Although the six-week cycle is a server wipe, this doesn’t mean you will lose all your progress and have to start from scratch. These seasonal wipes aren’t like Tarkov. They’re more of a soft wipe. That phrasing sounds disgusting. Here is what you keep in the Once Human season wipes:

• Important Currency: Starchroms, Crystgins, Mitsuko’s Marks, Stellar Planula, and Sproutlets.
• Gear Blueprints (and their stars), Blueprint Fragments, Weapon Accessories, and Mods.
• Furniture Formulas (except those gained through your Memetics).
• Cosmetics, Expressions and Poses, Namecards, and more.
• House Blueprints.
• Main story and side story task progress.
• Your friend list.

Eternaland will also exist in which players can build freely and transfer other items such as weapons, ammo, materials, medicines, and gear. It will be completely free to transfer items to Eternaland, and they will persist through seasons.

However, when a new season starts in Once Human, you can only bring these items out of Eternaland for a fee. It won’t be real-world money, though, so don’t worry. Here’s what you lose between seasons:

• Level
• Map and stronghold discovery
• Weapons, gear, medicines, and materials not stored and transferred from Enternaland
• Energy Link
• Seasonal Challenge progress

What do I think about the seasons of Once Human?

First, I would like to start by saying I really love the game. I love the SCP-style enemies, and I think the storyline is engaging. I think the PvP is fantastically done and promises some wonderful evolution in the future. Also, I think the base building and resource collecting are perfectly well-paced without completely swamping the rest of the game. The team at Once Human has nailed this in many ways. However, the six-week reset system may just be its downfall.

Six-week stop-clock

Six weeks is not a long time at all for Once Human seasons. Having a complete reset, including levels, starts to really cut down on who is going to enjoy the time spent with the game. Personally, I do not have the time to commit more than maybe an hour a day to the game, two tops. I have other life commitments to attend to. This makes my progress slow, which isn’t usually a problem.

If I now have to race against a very short clock to make progress before it is all lost, I simply won’t bother. I don’t want to feel constantly behind or like I am chasing levels because I have no time left. It feels like a rogue-lite MMO, and that isn’t a cocktail anyone ever wanted to mix.

More reasonable time

Maybe a longer time between wipes would be more reasonable. Give people time to really get to know the maps, the scenarios, and the servers they are in. Let people build obscene structures and get over-levelled. Let the casual players work slowly to become powerful and complete all the challenges. Six weeks is no time at all. Closer to six months between Once Human seasons would be more realistic.

Being able to carry things like blueprints and a few weapons through the seasons is a nice touch. However, I don’t think it is enough to make the short season time acceptable for the casual player. I think the team at Once Human is expecting too much from their player base. Of course, we will see how their current plan works out, but I think they may end up losing a lot of players once the new season starts and people feel they weren’t done with the last.

It’s not all bad

Honestly, all that being said, I really like the vision they have for the season wipes. I love that they have put the time and effort into making multiple storylines, quests, and enemies to explore. This kind of creativity isn’t seen enough in video games, and I encourage it.

I will be excited to see exactly what each server holds, what each new map is like, and what there is to discover. Also, I have no doubt that what they have in store in the coming months will be fantastic. I just feel I won’t ever have the time to really dig into it. However, when the new season comes around, I will certainly be choosing a PvP one, just for the added content.