Earth Taken

The first thing Earth Taken takes away from you is the air. The planet has been occupied, the atmosphere is no longer breathable, and your character survives only as long as the filter in his gas mask holds out. Everything else in SeethingSwarm's side-scrolling survival shooter — the shooting, the scavenging, the sprint between one abandoned building and the next — happens under that clock.

Breathing Is a Resource

Filters are the currency of the game. They deplete steadily whether you are fighting, exploring, or standing still reading a room, and when one runs out you need another immediately. They are found in the same places as everything else: cupboards, crates, corpses, and the pockets of whatever you have just dealt with. This turns exploration into a wager. Searching an extra room might turn up two filters, or it might cost you one and give you nothing.

Food works alongside it. Rations are consumed with the E key to recover condition, and like filters they are finite and scattered. Ammunition is the third pillar, and it is scarce enough that firing at everything that moves is not a viable strategy. Three resources, all draining, none of them reliably replaceable — that is the pressure the game runs on.

Scavenging and Fighting

You move and aim with the arrow keys, which means aiming and repositioning share the same input. Shooting is on A, jumping on S, and a double tap of S gets you a second jump for reaching ledges and dropping out of trouble. Reloading is manual on R, and switching between weapons is Q. The space bar handles interaction with the world — opening containers, using doors — and doubles as a physical grab, letting you take hold of an enemy at close range and throw them.

That grab is more useful than it first appears. Bullets are expensive and enemies are not always worth spending them on, so being able to shove one off a ledge or clear a doorway without firing is a genuine resource decision rather than a stunt. The game is unusually happy to let you avoid combat altogether if you can find a route around it.

Controls

The options menu lets you remap movement to WASD if you would rather keep your hands closer together.

Staying Alive Longer

• Search everything before you move on. Backtracking costs filter time, so a room left half-looted is usually a room you will never revisit.
• Count your filters, not your bullets. Ammunition scarcity is annoying; running out of breathable air ends the run. Keep at least one spare in reserve at all times.
• Reload during quiet moments. Manual reloading exists to catch you out, and the R key in the middle of a firefight is how most attempts end.
• Use the double jump defensively. Getting above or behind an enemy is often faster and cheaper than trading fire with them.
• Eat before you are desperate. Rations restore a fixed amount, so consuming one at very low condition wastes less of it than consuming one at half — but leaving it too late means never getting the chance.

Atmosphere Over Action

What separates Earth Taken from the many browser shooters it superficially resembles is restraint. It is quiet. The occupied world is drawn in muted, washed-out colours, there is very little text, and long stretches pass with nothing happening except the filter gauge ticking down. When enemies do appear they are dangerous enough that the encounter feels like a problem to solve rather than a wave to clear.

The goal — finding the underground shelters where survivors are holding out — gives the whole thing direction, but the game never stops to explain much. You piece the situation together from what you walk through, which is a considerable part of why it stuck with people.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens when my air filter runs out? Your character can no longer breathe the outside atmosphere and the run ends. Replacement filters have to be scavenged from the environment, so keeping a spare is essential.

How do I recover health? Press E to eat a food ration. Rations are found while exploring and are limited, so they function as healing items rather than a regenerating bar.

Can I remap the controls to WASD? Yes. The options menu includes a WASD movement layout if the arrow key default does not suit you.

What does the space bar do besides opening things? At close range it grabs an enemy, letting you throw them. It is an ammunition-free way to deal with a threat or clear a blocked route.

Is there a way to avoid fighting? Often, yes. Routes around encounters exist, and given how limited ammunition is, taking them is frequently the better play.

Who made Earth Taken? SeethingSwarm, who followed it with further entries in the same setting.