Escaping from Dukov was not at all what I expected. Explosive concurrent player growth and outstanding sales are typically associated with Steam games with multiplayer mode. These are the games that tend to catch on and burn out, then burn out after a few months. But Duckov is a single-player game, at least in its standard form (there are co-op mods). It's a single-player loot shooter that seems like a contradiction to even write about: loot shooters are multiplayer! But not here. You leave your bunker to explore the aggressive world and loot everything you see, then return to base to build and upgrade. Then you do it all again.
It's surprisingly calm – that's another thing that confuses me about it. This doesn't mean there isn't tension, mind you. Dukov reminds me a lot Miami Hotline in the way there are sudden bursts of insane, bloody action. You'll walk around and rotate your conical field of vision from top to bottom, then you'll hear a quack and an enemy will attack you – and attack you hard. The moment you see them on the screen, they'll already start shooting, so unless you click your mouse button and start returning fire quickly, you'll be dead. There are many dying people in Dukovo. Death is unceremonious and swift.
But there is no brutal oppression, teenage angst or self-righteous war fuss here. It's a brightly colored world out there and you're a duck – that's probably all I need to say. You'll meet a muscular duck with a six-pack who wants you to collect eggs so she can keep digesting the protein, which is stupid and, come to think of it, not that weird considering she eats duck eggs. Let's not dwell on this; the game doesn't dwell on this. It's carefree – everything about Dukov exudes ease, except perhaps for the tense tiptoeing around as you proactively cover every nook and cranny from which an enemy might suddenly pop out.
I also didn't expect so much base building and crafting. This adds a peaceful side to the game as you lumber around your bunker base, completing various tasks: questing, trading, organizing storage, crafting, upgrading. And all this to the accompaniment of a jazzy lounge track, perfect for a Sunday afternoon bath. And those guts give the game a sense of substance, quality, and perhaps development time, that help Dukov feel like it's actually the real thing. That this is not just an opportunistic copy of the expensive shooter Escape from Tarkov. Indeed, apart from the name, there is nothing fake about it. Dukov feels that he has a purpose that goes beyond parody. I understand why people like it and why they stick with it.
Moreover, this is another outstanding Steam success story that no one expected. See also the success of Megabonk, a 3D look at vampire survivors. These are small projects that outperform and perhaps embarrass much larger projects on infinitesimal budgets. In fact, games with which they have no business going into the ring. And yet they do it, and yet they win. This is amazing. Successes like Dukov and Megabonk pierce that persistently dark cloud that hangs over us in this industry, piercing it like rays of sunshine and demonstrating that incredible success still exists, is still possible. Wealth, potentially and perhaps more sporadically, awaits. What has changed is what games people want to play.
