Plains of Pain on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Survive a brutal open world alone or with friends. Explore a procedural wasteland scorched by chaos. Build and defend your base, trade for what you need, complete deadly quests, and fight to claim faction outposts before someone else does.
Plains of Pain is a early access, survival and massively multiplayer game
developed and published by Cobra Byte Digital.
Released on February 17th 2023 is available only on Windows
in 6 languages: English, Czech, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil, German and French.
It has received 332 reviews of which 282 were positive and 50 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.9 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 19.50€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Plains of Pain into these genres:
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows 7
- Processor: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- Memory: 10 GB RAM
- Graphics: GTX 670 2GB / AMD R9 280 better
- DirectX: Version 11
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 7 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Plains of Pain was something I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did - it appeared on my radar from a random YouTuber I wasn't subscribed to; but the game looked interesting enough so I gave the video a watch. Over-all thoughts and TL;DR at the bottom. I'll be frank; the game's combat and systems looked 'jank', but there was something about the game's systems and free open world to explore that drew me in near instantly - so I bought the game to give it a go. What awaited me was a flawed but very promising early access title that - once I understood it's fundamental gameplay loop and systems - sunk hours and hours into a brutal world that holds no hands. It offers itself to be lived in with settlements that you as the player can try to rebuild, hordes of lowlifes and bandits that will constantly try to rip that safety away from you - and a mystery of your origins and friends you wake next to. COMBAT; The combat in Plains of Pain as of the time of me writing this review is not polished. Melee is a dance of trying to hit your opponent while they're locked in an attack animation that missed you, and doesn't really 'feel' great as there is no 'dodge' or 'block' button so the only way for you to avoid attacks is running around or away from them- but it is functional and serves it's purpose of providing a dangerous world to interact with. Ranged combat is fine and I have little to no complaints about it's functionality. FRIENDLY FIRE; This game has friendly fire for everyone. No matter how much rep you grind with the Dustborns or anyone else - if there is a lowlife grunt between you and them; they WILL dome you and kill you with a ranged weapon. This is something of a gripe for me, as you have to pro-actively make sure you're out of the way of your allies otherwise they'll kill you with no remorse. Don't get me wrong however, as I believe this system fundamentally is great in concept - as lowlife grunts and other enemies are prone to killing each other accidentally as well which provides a sense of 'immersion' to the game's world. There is no hand-holding for everyone, fatality is fair and ready for all. If I could make one request when it comes to this; it would be that factions players have high rep with would at least attempt not to shoot their weapons if the player is within the way. ANIMATIONS; One thing that struck out at me and nearly ripped me out of the experience of this game is the animations. Lowlife grunts will attack you - and while they attempt to smack the life out of you, they will morph their bodies and contort in ways that just looks incredibly goofy. I imagine this is just a stand-in for better animations down the line, given the game's early-access nature - it is something I forgive and look over with the hopes it will be fixed and improved in time/ Other than that, all animations in the game serve their purpose - some may feel stiff and rigid but ultimately they're service-able. CRAFTING; The back and forth of salvaging and crafting in this game is a core loop and drive for the game. First you'll want to make storage, next you'll want to make something to harvest stone and metal, eventually you'll need equipment like backpacks, weapons and vehicles etc. You won't know everything the game has to offer, so you'll be traveling to different towns and merchants to find blueprints to help facilitate this loop - and it does feel quite rewarding, especially when you get into building up one of these towns, or daring to create your own once you're deeper into the game. SETTLEMENTS & NPCs; The different towns you find are where you find merchants and production structures. Some of these production structures you'll have to help them rebuild - in which you'll be able to reap the rewards from once you do. This doesn't come cheap, however; as you WILL have to donate food and water to aid in these NPCs working on the production structures and some of those structures will need certain items to maintain their production of resources. Within these settlements, some offer the opportunity to build a Barracks or Sniper Tower - which provides a comfort of defense against lowlifes and bandits if you get them up and running. NPCs will spawn from them and patrol the town to defend against would-be-aggressors. I find that Settlements are a core part of the progression as the further in the game you go, you'll find more merchants and production structures that help aid in progressing what tools, weapons, structure blueprints and vehicles you use. VEHICLES; There are vehicles in this game that you'll find damaged at some of the settlements you find. These will take a lot of time to build, and I honestly recommend skipping the first duster vehicles at the beginning Frank & Ron settlement to find something that has a lot more storage and fuel capacity. You can upgrade these vehicles to use less fuel, drive faster, have more health and storage etc and I will highly recommend to at least upgrade your vehicle to use less fuel at least once or twice before you take it on the road. Once you have vehicles unlocked - it unlocks the possibilities to travel to further settlements and return to your home settlement much faster, and more importantly biomes and zones way further from spawn point that unlocks new content to discover. QUESTS; This game provides a quest system which has some intrigue when you speak to Ron and Frank - however most of what you'll be doing at the start are quests designed to guide you to craft certain critical items like bandages, tools and where to use them. The questline from Ron and Frank does eventually lead you further into later content, which is a great guiding beacon for players to keep track of where they can go whenever they desire to push further ahead. TRADING; One of the core ways to make money in this game is trading parcels between different settlements. In your time playing the game discovering all the variety of settlements; you'll eventually discover who sells and buys what and at what price. There are merchants that sell other goods as well which once you've secured good funds for; can help alleviate the need and stress of constantly salvaging resources that may be needed to maintain your settlement's production structures. WEAPONS & ARMOR; You can craft weapons and armor, however you'll come across rare drops from enemies sometimes that have unique stat modifiers. As far as I've seen, anything I've crafted is simply base stats and doesn't have the chance to create any of these unique modifiers - so ultimately your progression of 'better gear' would be from killing/looting to potentially find these better pieces of equipment. This doesn't feel unfair to me however, as killing and looting is inherently a big part of the game's core loop - you'll naturally come across these upgrades through playing and the crafted gear you created still feels like it has a decent enough impact to be worth it. OVER-ALL THOUGHTS | TL;DR I have great hopes for Plains of Pain - it has the core foundations of something that I believe can truly shine where perhaps other post-apocalyptic survival games have failed for me. The idea of starting from nothing - to eventually creating your own safe haven with NPCs to bring hope into a dying world is something I enjoyed from a similar game in themes like Kenshi. There is quite a lot of work to be done still, but the developers are actively working on this game with updates and hotfixes that gives me confidence that we will one day see what Plains of Pain can truly be. What is here now, is something I recommend you look into first to see if it's something you may enjoy; as this is an early access title with flaws that can turn away many people - but if you can look past that and see the vision of what the developers are creating here; I truly believe this game is worth supporting and seeing through to it's 1.0 release and beyond.
Expand the review
Updated for the 0.6 patch. A survival post apocalyptic sandbox crafter. hardcore mechanics like overheat and having to micromanage every action you do such as managing your stamina during heavy thick combat encounters and properly managing your inventory for maximum efficiency. The 0.6 update added gates...that lock. As you can imagine, on a MP server with full loot, open pvp this can cause some havoc. On one of the official servers I've managed to wall off and gate every POI within 500m of the starting spawn. This makes the game exceptionally difficult for new players as they don't have access to any loot containers. So you can see the fun you can have with this on MP servers. Other players can take down the walls and build their own gate if they want. However, since only 7 people play this at any given time, nobody plays MP for fear of getting griefed. So 1 person can control an entire server if they wanted. This game was made for MP. You craft structures that produce resources and this works better if you're on a server vs. single player since resources accrue while you're offline. Plus there just ins't enough content here to justify the singleplayer experience as once you've crafted your base and done whatever, all there is to do is kill faction NPC's for maximum xp gain and build anywhere on the map. I adore POP so I will continue to support Fosco and Frost in their development of the game but crafting needs a complete overhaul. Currently, you can build a floor tile and surround another players base with those and I'm literally stuck. Floor tiles can't be damaged nor be removed, even by the player that crafted it. Some pieces dont align properly or can never be placed on certain other tiles when you'd think they'd fit perfectly. So alot of issues with building pieces right now. Only about half of them can actually be removed once built. Map generation is in my opinion, worse than before 0.6. The current map generation is very basic. Only 2 settlements, 2 junkyards, 4 refineries, ammo ace jackson, a bazaar and a bunch of oil pumps are really the only POI's you will encounter. Pre 0.6 you had toxic and radiation sites with locked containers, forcing you to move quickly. A bit of risk vs. reward, None of that now. Any vendors or other "towns" you run across on the map are very small vendors with 1 or 2 NPC's manning them. This leads to boredom once you've explored the whole map and visited every NPC. The map is just very static. Some random events that spawn would be amazing. To liven up the static map.
Expand the review
I would like to preface this by saying while I do enjoy it and do recommend the game, it is a highly cautious recommend and allow me to explain why. First off, the good: 1. The game does well in encapsulating what it'd be like to be stuck in a post apocalyptic desert setting (think Mad Max but with less roving bandits maybe). Survival is difficult early on until you get situated and learn the mechanics which can be a positive for those seeking a rough go of it. 2. The game has a cargo trading system where one settlement may sell food and want drugs (and not medical drugs as medical supplies are a different thing but hey I won't judge) while another settlement may sell drugs and want food so you get a supply run going between the two points for some money. 3. While the game is harsh, it is fair. You start off with a handful of supplies which should last long enough for you to get established and set up basic structures to get you going. There are some animals about, harvestable cactus both the green leaflike edible ones and tall green poles. You can make basic water condensers with materials you can find scavenging. If there's a farm box in a settlement, you can also harvest from there for some food or bugs which you can make food from said bug, a rock and a cloth (again Mad Max setting you do what you gotta). 4. Inventory management is rough at the start with just your pockets barely able to hold anything but you can build your way up relatively quickly. There's also stashes you can make from stone which is plentiful when scavenging. Now for the bad. And again while I do like the game, I do feel like I need to be blunt in my critique. 1. It's a desert, so you don't think there'd be much around, and you'd be right. Without a vehicle, it takes a long while to get anywhere and if you are encumbered you can't run so it'll be even more of a slog. With a vehicle, it feels not worth it because getting the fuel is rough at the start. There are random events that spawn barrels that may contain bio diesel or gas or it could contain dirty water or poison. Not to mention you need a large backpack and liquid container to make it worthwhile. 2. The cargo trade system can be easily abused to make a ton of money quick which may not sound like a drawback but making the game too easy can feel counterproductive for some who want a harsh time surviving. Also the economy of the game needs a lot of work. Traders can have varying prices for the same item so the player is incentivized to explore before spending any money (while also establishing trade routes) but again without a vehicle it doesn't feel worth it. 3. There is a random event called Overheat where the world just becomes very hot. It doesnt sound like much but overheating causes damage depending on how overheated the player is. Early on, it basically makes the game unplayable for the event period because with no heat protection the damage adds up fast. 4. Combat is....very basic. The enemy swing has a delay between the animation and the hitbox so you can "dodge" an attack by backpedaling out of the swing. Some enemies have ranged attacks which can be dodged by just going side to side. The damage is inconsistent at times where I can do between 9 to 45 damage. Damage is also tied to the weapon's durability so if you want the max amount of damage from your weapon you need to repair it often even if it's still at 80% which is a poorly thought out system. 5. Repairing a vehicle is very costly to craft the parts so it's better to scavenge for them which is very rng. 10+ hours (I accidentally left it on once at night when I slept) and I have yet to fully repair a vehicle. 6. Settlements use the same model for one of the enemies and one of the settlers so it's confusing who to attack who to not when the enemies attack a settlement (likely from spawning nearby said settlement). 7. NPC idle voice lines occur too often so being in a settlement where an npc has that annoying af groaning voice line becomes torture. 8. Items have a weight and a volume. you can carry past your weight limit til you hit your volume limit. If you are above your weight limit you become encumbered and cannot run and if too encumbered you also cannot jump. This system is somewhat fine but some items have too much volume for what they are, like bones taking up too much volume for what they are. Also one water bottle takes up 2 volume but 5 planks of wood takes up 3.5 volume and a can of soup takes up 0.3? It needs a lot of work to balance it out. 9. Building is a mess. Sometimes foundations are on different heights with no way to change it or remove them. Rotating is not smooth so nothing will really line up. 10. Crafting an item will use EVERY item if you can craft said item multiple times. If you have 30 sticks and want to use just 10 to make some arrows, you have to separate the stack (which you can only split the stack in half with right click so be prepared to right click everything) then you can so long as the item limit listed is the limit you want to use. 11. Stuff killed will poof into a pile of bones on the ground which I suppose is for optimization but the animal remains are tiny in comparison to what they are which makes finding the remains among grass a pain. 12. There is a display for stuff looted and reputation change and player warning for overheating and such but it just...sometimes doesnt work. It like gets stuck and then a backlog gets created which then unleashes all at once like a flood of poorly managed data. 13. The game is in desperate need of at least two more hotbar slots. You only get 4 and using an item like food, bottles, medical items, a lock for storage/vehicles/doors, a flashlight, loot keys or weapons requires a slot. It leads to a lot of unnecessary juggling and feels clunky. There are other gripes but they aren't as offputting as the ones listed. There are also some other small praises for the game (like the skill system feeling rather balanced). Anyways yeah, it's alright, pick it up on sale if interested cuz 20 is too much, and have a good day. Edit: Decided to give it a solid go, got a vehicle, upgrading it requires inserting whatever it says (like a gallon bottle to upgrade the fuel tank capacity once) and used to to ferry back and forth between trade routes to get gold currency which is very valuable to fully upgrade said car. Still feel like the economy or upgrade system or both need a bit of tweaking due to how easy it is to make money with a vehicle. My crossbow is now bugged where it shoots like 2mm to the left of the crosshair. I found a katana which is cool but also why (rule of cool why not I guess) and made the repeating crossbow with 3 shots. I never had to upgrade my health and feel op despite such. Still though it feels like it's because of my exploration and struggle at the start so it is a good feeling. Overall 6.5/10 game still needs work and has some bugs that can sometimes be fixed with a restart but is functional and can be fun for the masochist.
Expand the review
Since 0.6 dropped been having a blast in single player. This game is shaping up to tick ma boxes.
Expand the review
Great game, Kenshi meets Conan. Absolute hidden gem. Tons of depth. 8/10. It is mysteriously addictive. It is rough around the edges but the greatness is there.
Expand the review
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Frequently Asked Questions
Plains of Pain is currently priced at 19.50€ on Steam.
Plains of Pain is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 19.50€ on Steam.
Plains of Pain received 282 positive votes out of a total of 332 achieving a rating of 7.89.
😊
Plains of Pain was developed and published by Cobra Byte Digital.
Plains of Pain is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Plains of Pain is not playable on MacOS.
Plains of Pain is not playable on Linux.
Plains of Pain offers both single-player and multi-player modes.
Plains of Pain offers both Co-op and PvP modes.
Plains of Pain does not currently offer any DLC.
Plains of Pain does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Plains of Pain does not support Steam Remote Play.
Plains of Pain is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Plains of Pain.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 02 September 2025 07:06 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 11 September 2025 04:48 |
| Steam price | 14 September 2025 20:50 |
| Steam reviews | 13 September 2025 06:05 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Plains of Pain, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Plains of Pain
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Plains of Pain concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Plains of Pain compatibility
Game modes
Multiplayer
Features
Online players
53
Developer
Cobra Byte Digital
Publisher
Cobra Byte Digital
Release
17 Feb 2023
Platforms