$11.99HOPE 01 Loot the dark, escape alive
Raid a dying underground cluster for weapons and supplies, then get back to your hideout before the horrors take it all.
Is HOPE 01 worth it?
HOPE 01 is worth it if…
- you want an extraction shooter without other players breathing down your neck
- you like survival horror where a flashlight and a knife are loadout decisions
- you enjoy maps you have to memorize, not minimaps that walk you through them
- you want a hard game that punishes carelessness but never feels unfair
- you like stories told through item descriptions and a world that does not explain itself
Screenshots
A mystery buried under the hab cluster
You wake up in a deteriorating underground facility with nothing but a request: find HAB 01. No cutscene explains it, no marker points the way. The answer waits somewhere in a vast, interconnected labyrinth of what once was, and getting there means piecing together the story from survivors, item descriptions and what the halls themselves tell you. The ending you reach is yours to decide, and there are several. It is a dark, oppressive place, and the questions pile up faster than the answers. If you like a plot you have to dig out rather than watch, this is the pull.
Guns with character, not stat sheets
There are more than 70 weapons, and none of them come with a tidy number chart. Instead you get written descriptions of rate of fire, muzzle velocity, penetration and reload, and a firing range where you can test them yourself on ballistics gel and see the wound channels for real. A pistol that looks unremarkable on paper may become your favorite after one bad night. Add gadgets and usable items on top, and every raid can be built differently: a fast, mobile kit, a stunlocking bully loadout, or whatever the loot gods handed you this time.
Everything you carry, you can lose
This is the extraction loop, and it bites. You drop into the hab cluster with your gear, fill your grid inventory with weapons, armor, food and gadgets, and then have to get out alive. Die, and everything you brought or found is gone. The train out waits for no one, and the deeper you push, the longer the retreat. One wrong turn in the dark and you are bleeding out, wondering which of fifteen unscanned food items will make it home. The saving grace: anything you have scanned once can be printed again at your hideout, so a death hurts but rarely erases you.
What should you know before playing?
Is it hard for beginners?
Yes, and it says so up front. Early on you die a lot, often to bosses you meet for the first time. But the difficulty is fair: most deaths trace back to a mistake, like pushing too far with low ammo or ignoring an injury that stops you from running. Perks and upgrades you buy at the hideout stay with you through every death, so progress accumulates even on bad nights.
Do you need to read English well?
Somewhat. The game is currently in English only, and a lot of its charm lives in the text: item descriptions, NPC dialogue and quest lines all carry story. Nothing is written in difficult prose, but if reading English is a struggle, much of what makes the world interesting will be harder to enjoy.
How long is a playthrough?
Longer than the 2D look suggests. One ending took one player around 30 hours, and completing everything runs to 50 hours or more. Raids themselves are short sessions, which is exactly why it is hard to find a good place to stop: one more run always sounds reasonable.
Is the map confusing without a minimap?
There is no map at all, and that is a deliberate choice. Learning the corridors by hand is part of the game, and the rooms are distinct enough to tell apart once you have been through an area a few times. Some players bring spray cans and long-burning matches to mark their own way. If you want a game to navigate for you, this will frustrate you.
Can you play it solo?
That is the only way. It is a singleplayer game from start to finish: no other players in your raids, no co-op. The tension comes from the place itself, the enemies hunting the halls and the clock on your extraction, not from a lobby.
