The latest cooperative survival game is here now that Merge Games has released Smalland: Survive the Wilds into early access. While it doesn’t take long after starting the game to realize that there is some work to be done still for the game, the amount of fun it manages to provide in its current state also can’t be ignored.

Gameplay

When you first start up, you will go through a rather subpar tutorial. It does go over the basics, but it fails to tell you something crucial. When you go to collect materials, you don’t get it just by breaking the item. You still have to pick the pieces up off of the ground. So, when they tell you to get wood from twigs, make sure after you break the twig to look down where the twig was and gather the wood. This rule applies when collecting literally any material in the game.

That little hindrance isn’t a big deal once you get used to it and the starting area is full of material to get you started. Make sure to collect as much as you can, talk to a few of the NPCs to get the quest line started up, and you can even have some basic armor made with some of the material you’ve gathered at one of the NPCs.

While the urge to explore is going to be prevalent, I suggest the next thing you do to be building a home. This can be set on ground level, but you will have the concern of enemies showing up that way, so I suggest lifting your house in the air a bit. While this game does try to follow some sort of stability realism, they are also rather lenient… just look at my house after all.

Your house will be your shelter when it rains, a place for you to put a bed to make it your spawn point, and you can get everything set up here that you will need. You really don’t need a ton of space, but I like having a small balcony outside in the back. This lets me put my campfire on my balcony, a few torches so my house is a beacon in the very dark night, and inside I have my workbench, stone bench, bed, and chests, all organized by material type.

Things you have to watch for in this game include your nourishment. Every time you sleep, the bar will jump, but during the day it will slowly decrease. You simply need to eat to keep this up. At first, this seemed hard, but really you can just cook a bunch of ant heads and keep them on you. But food consists of things you get from the other bugs you kill, including making Beetle Sausage with a Beetle Heart and Insect Fat, Mushroom Steak with a combination of Edible Mushrooms, and more recipes. These all unlock as you collect new items and you can make them fairly quickly at your campfire.

Collecting materials and fighting other insects is a big part of the game, so make sure you use that starting set of resources to make your initial gear. You’ll want a hatchet, a sword, a hammer, and a torch at the least. Swords are the best starting weapon, next to a bow and arrow setup, so make sure you have that ready. You can just repair equipment once it’s made, which is a lot cheaper to fix than make, so use the workbench to keep your gear up to date. When looking for more materials, or even enemies, you’ll want to use your insect radar to keep track of where things are and make it easier to see for yourself, but it doesn’t show the resources after you break them so picking them off the ground will either be a guess, hard to see or require you to turn off the special vision.

Expectations

Something they have in this game that currently doesn’t seem fruitful are the Grand Trees. You can find one of many grand trees and end up claiming it once you climb all the way to the top. The thing is, while this keeps you safe from enemies, there’s no real benefit to being on top of the tree - given you aren’t going in multiple servers. I made a small house with beds and a campfire on top of mine, but I don’t want to make it my spawn because all my stuff is at my main base. While they have a quick way up and down the tree once you claim it, I don’t see the point of these things yet. There is definitely some potential for their use, but there’s a chance it is mostly meant for a multi-server purpose.

There are a ton of small issues that need to be worked out. For instance, I should be able to sleep in a bed away from my spawn point without making the new bed my spawn point. Gathering material shouldn’t be a multi-step process either. If I broke the twig, just give me the wood. The same goes for when you break stone with a pickaxe and every other material collectible in the game. I understand enemies dropping what you can collect from them, but material collecting should be fast and simple.

The tutorial needs to be updated to be really specific with how to get started and not just give players the quests to get going. They should put emphasis on building a home base and getting themselves set up for the harsh weather elements and various enemies they are going to face. It would be a good time to hint at some of the cool things they can pull off, like riding ladybugs and grasshoppers.

Verdict

Smalland: Survive the Wilds is off to a pretty fun start, but is very obviously in early access just from how the game plays. There is still plenty of work to get done to improve the game further, but as far as its initial groundwork goes, this is a solid game that doesn’t shy away from being exactly what it is. Given its low price, this is a game I would say is worth getting in on early as even the current build is fun to play, especially with friends!

Smalland: Survive the Wilds is available now on PC via Steam Early Access.