Nether has officially launched on PC via Steam. The game first came onto the scene through the Greenlight process and then moved on to Steam's Early Access program, and it's now graduated and officially launched as a full product on Steam's store.

Chip Sineni, Creative Director at Phosphor Games commented about the game, saying...

“Since launching early access, we’ve continually worked with our rabid community to drive development of all the features that make Nether a survival gaming experience unlike any other,” ... “We never knew what Nether would look like at full release and we have been constantly amazed at the player enthusiasm to help create a solid game."

I managed to get some time in with Nether when it first entered Early Access. Previously the game looked pretty cool and constantly had updates and features frequently added to it, so it seemed like a pretty cool game to play, and play I did.

It's not an easy game by any means, but it's not meant to be easy. If you like survival games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and DayZ but you don't want to deal with the long character progression mechanics in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or the endless amounts of running/walking in DayZ, you'll find that Nether gets you right into the action... so you can die and die a lot.

It's not a perfect game (but then again it could be a lot better than what I played since this February) but it does what it does pretty well. Players create a character, get dumped into the game world and ultimately fight for survival against other players and mutant monsters from the “nether”.

Just like the aforementioned survival titles, you have to scavenge for food and supplies, as well as gather material and parts to craft weapons and ammo.

Random world events add an extra measure of uncertainty and randomness to the game, and playing with a group of friends will give you plenty of intense and uniquely entertaining moments to share.

The shooting mechanics worked pretty well from the last time I played (and it's unlikely they got any worse) and the atmosphere and world were designed to give players plenty of heart-thumping moments of anxiety and tension.

One of my only major gripes that I remember was that the monsters never lost sight of you once they gained sight of you. I don't know if you can outrun them or hide from them once you have their aggro in the updated, final build, but that would be pretty cool if you could.

Nether's open-world, PvP, horror-survival mechanics could help it appeal to people looking for something easier to get into than DayZ but definitely more antagonistic and competitive than a game like Killing Floor.

You can pick up a digital copy of Nether from Steam right now for only $14.99. For a limited time there are also some special goodies being given out to players who pick up a copy after June 5th.

For more info, feel free to pay a visit to the official website.