Can this miniature game go big?
Experience a big adventure on a tiny scale! Enjoy multiplayer survival in a vast, hazardous world. Preparation is key when you’re this small & at the bottom of the food chain. Craft weapons & armour, tame & ride creatures, build encampments & explore a strange new land.
Smalland: Survive the Wilds is your typical survival game, but with a twist. Your character is tiny, so tiny a flower can tower over it like a tree. A ladybird can kill you or a hornet can sting you and every other creepy crawly out there can either be an ally or an enemy, depending on the type.
You can choose to play the game solo or play online, as well as setting up your own specific settings. These can vary from enemies being friendly or not, dropping your inventory on death or not and so on. You can also just join an open server if you wish to just jump into someone’s else’s world.
The obvious comparison with a game like this is Obsidian’s “Grounded”, but this feels slightly different overall. The game doesn’t do much in terms of explaining how it works with the server system or the overall settings. It instead presumes you’ve done this before with another game like Minecraft or something, which I get…but the option for a tutorial for this would have been nice.
The controls are easy enough to get to grips with, though the game doesn’t hold your hand in any way other than telling you where to go at the start of the game. Eventually, you’ll get the freedom to create your own encampments and traverse in what is quite a large open world. You’ll even get to ride bugs that can run or fly once tamed.
Combat can seem a bit clunky and the game does have a few glitchy moments, but nothing game-breaking. Character models and animations are mixed, but the visuals are impressive. The environment is vibrant and well detailed. Framerate seemed consistent throughout and the music is also decent.
The Verdict
Smalland: Survive the Wilds may not do anything that different from other survival games, but it does them well, for the most part. It may have slightly clunky combat and it does tend to throw you in the deep end quite quickly, but it is definitely worth a look for fans of the genre.