One of many Dead by Daylight clones, Last Year stands out from the crowd in how polished it is. The game looks great, has a hearty heft to your movements, and the sound design is killer. Despite all that, it just doesn’t click for me. Last Year feels like one of those games that only really has veterans playing it, both because of its obscurity and its unfriendliness towards beginners. Everyone who’s playing it already knows the ins and outs and there is no swarm of new players ever flocking to the game. I didn't play nearly enough to speak extensively or intelligently on the balance, but some cheese tactics people pulled off were a bit questionable for a game that wants to be taken seriously. Still, for a free game you could do much worse. The method of respawning behind doors and having the Fiend able to appear anywhere outside of eyesight are novel ideas, it’s just not enough to overcome my overwhelming apathy for the game. Last Year also has buyable cosmetics if you’re into that. Though again, you really have to be already knee-deep into this niche community to even consider that.

Ahora que este juego ha pasado a manos de otra empresa siento que tienen mucho trabajo por hacer si es que realmente quieren resucitarlo porque a veces se siente como que no está terminado y por momentos parece que está roto. La idea original me parece divertida y entretenida sobre todo en el terreno casual y para echarse unas risas, pero no creo que en algún momento llegue a ser competitivo.
Me pareció interesante la integración de diferentes clases en los supervivientes (asalto, médico, scout, técnico) como también el poder craftear herramientas, pero esto se ve estropeado a la hora de jugar por que los mapas se sienten muy pequeños y esto se debe a que la penalidad por haber muerto es casi nula tanto para el asesino como para los supervivientes.
Por el estado en el que está no recomiendo jugarlo pero si te da curiosidad dale una probada ya que es F2P.

Last Year can be summarised quite simply as a game with intention but no direction. Taking clear inspiration from Dead By Daylight, Last Year tries to develop the asymmetrical horror video game genre. I understand this game went through development hell, and has been released on various different platforms at different price points. However, at the time of writing, Last Year was recently released for free on Steam. I decided to give it a try given the small bump in playerbase and I found it to be a real mixed bag.

Environments are visually fantastic and combined with some of the gameplay mechanics, such as traps and spiders, it establishes an atmosphere that makes it uncomfortable to explore.

The fiends are fun to play, but visually the design leaves a lot to be desired, and doesn't quite scratch the itch of other competitor games in the industry. Additionally, the roster is really small, with 4 fiends at the time of releasing. One advantage the fiends have over the classmates is that their cosmetics are much better, with the survivors mostly possessing simple recolours most of the time.

Fiends are able to disappear and reappear when out of the line of sight of other players, allowing you to place traps in key areas, reposition, and set up ambushes. The time to kill in Last Year is extremely fast, with some fiends being particularly strong in combination with traps. Interestingly, survivors possess ways of fighting back, which is a nice idea but mostly futile, and you'll find yourself dying over and over again in order to whittle down the killer's health, or keep him distracted so that your teammates can complete objectives.

This leads to combat, which is extremely floaty and imprecise for both sides, hits never felt satisfying to land, but the execution animations are gnarly. Gameplay involves a lot of scavenging and crafting too, leading to better equipment and skills necessary to put up a stronger fight against the killer. I find the gameplay way more fun from the side of the fiends, but quite a slog from the perspective of the survivors. Survivors have to complete all of the objectives in 15 minutes, able to respawn upon death in "Left 4 Dead"-like rooms, and have different classes which provide the character with inherent skills and different craftables. The base design of the survivors is actually pretty good, but like I alluded to earlier, the available cosmetics are nowhere near good enough to warrant spending the time or money to earn.

The audio design is also extremely polished, things crunch, they pop, they gurgle, and it all serves to add flavourings to the game. Although there is nothing wrong with the voice acting, the script at times is corny, with lines such as "um guys.. i really don't think this is a good idea o.o". I assume the intention was to capture the often goofy and plastic nature of horror characters though which I can excuse.

I do not in any way think Last Year is a bad game conceptually, however during my time with the game, it definitely feels as if something is missing from the experience that doesn't quite give me the hope that this game will live on beyond this initial resuscitation period it's experiencing. The game needs more variety across the board, from cosmetics, to fiends, to survivors, maps and most importantly progression. There are some good ideas here, and I hope the developers continue to work on this game, adding new content throughout and polishing some of the gameplay issues. Free to Play was definitely the correct decision in this case, but without a steady content roadmap, it will stagnate, and I may revisit after a period of time to evaluate the changes.