Smalland Early Access Review

With thanks to the folks at Merge Games we’re going on an adventure to bring you our early access review for Smalland: Survive the Wilds. This small-scale title hasn’t fully launched yet, so as is proper we’re running down our initial thoughts without any final marks here. Bear in mind that things can change, but we’re still bringing you a top to bottom video and written review for Smalland, alongside our common-sense parent’s guide and accessibility assessment.

As a note, if you entered our giveaway for an early access copy of Smalland, please check your inbox! Our winner still hasn’t come back to us, and if we don’t hear back we’re going to have to redraw our winner (very sad face).

The Basics – What is Smalland About?

Smalland is an exceptionally small-scale survival adventure. This will be quite familiar to anybody who has played Valheim, Ark or Conan, with the usual survival mechanics. This one, however, is exceptionally cosy. As a tiny fae-like creature you’ll roam among the berries and bugs of the forest floor.

You’ll likely start small, collecting basic elements in the local area, and building a teeny tiny fae house. Before long, however, you’ll need to explore further into this wilderness to find more exotic materials, upgrade your equipment and set yourself up for life on the forest floor.

In addition to the standard exploration and survival elements Smalland also brings its own unique slant. As well as the tiny scale, you can also use your antenna to discover important resources and get background information on the bugs you find on your way (including any particular combat weaknesses).

While you might be after a cosy life on the forest floor, the various ants, spiders, bees, wasps and beetles might have other ideas. With some being outright violent, you’ll have to craft suitable weapons, and seek out armorsmiths among the woodland. You can also do all of this alone (and Smalland actually works really well as a single player) or with friends, as must like any other survival adventure Smalland supports online play.

Is Smalland Safe for Children?

As an early access title, Smalland isn’t yet fully rated by PEGI or the ESRB. From our experience though, things are pretty ok here. Blood and gore is minimal if not nonexistent, and we’ve not found any language within our time in the title either. The one thing to consider is that at this scale, bugs and spiders can be really quite scary and might put off younger players.

The title does have an arachnophobia setting, which has options to remove some (or all) spider legs, fangs, or just leave floating bodies. This does make spiders look a little comical (and this setting only affects spiders, and not insects) but doesn’t entirely remove the creep factor.

It is also worth bearing in mind the early access nature of the title. While there are only arachnophobia settings currently, anything could happen between now and day one after release. Check back for our full review at the time where we’ll cover this in more detail and give our final score.

Is Smalland Accessible?

Rating:

Smalland does bring accessibility options, including peaceful mode, which mean that you can take the title at your own pace. There’s some reading involved with recipes and story elements, but that’s the only thing which might get in the way.

Having these sliders to impact your gameplay is a really nice feature, and it’s one which we fully support. With these, you can make the title as easy or as difficult as you like, meaning that it can provide something for nearly every player.

The Run Down

I’ve enjoyed the gameplay of Smalland in this early access stage. If you’ve played other survival titles you’ll really know what you’re getting into. While it’s not a finished title there’s plenty to be getting on with, but we are hoping for further building options and items to be added as it moves through development. Fighting feels solid and ironically, we’ve come across very few bugs or glitches.

Visuals are also pretty great most of the time, with good weather effects and some stunning vistas at this small scale. There’s not a great deal I would expect to see improve here, marked against other similar titles, and things are looking really nice even close up, at this early stage.

Audio is also strong, and there’s been a lack of any repetition. It would have been nice to see voice acting in the areas where you are speaking with NPC fae characters, but this could be added as the title moves forward. Audio cues and effects are well implemented, alongside a decent soundtrack.

The title also already has some narrative content, and while it’s not war and peace it might already be more than I expect from a survival title.

Replay is also good. We’ve been primarily playing through as a solo adventure, but jumping in with friends really raises the experience and much like Valheim and others, when working together it feels like almost anything is possible.

Overall this is another very solid early access build. The small scale is incredibly enjoyable, and there’s a good number of different creatures to encounter as both enemies and friends. The grounded-like perspective really lends itself well to a survival adventure, and while we’re definitely looking forward to seeing where this title goes, it’s definitely worth jumping in right now if you’re a fan of the genre.

To provide this review and common-sense parent’s guide, we received two free copies of Smalland from the folks at Merge Games.