Besiege: The Splintered Sea Review Summary

Adds impressive water physics, new levels, items, sandbox mode and boats, though the water physics often break and the campaign is short with too few levels.

Cool and Great DLC: Players consistently describe the DLC as cool, great, and enjoyable. It is considered worth buying, especially at a low price.

Impressive Expansion to Base Game: The expansion is praised as excellent and a great addition that adds replayability and functional depth. It feels like a proper expansion.

Fun Water Environment and Mechanics: The new water environment, including boats and water mechanics, is fun to play with and visually beautiful.

Realistic and Masterful Water Physics: Water physics are described as masterfully done, cool, realistic, and great for building. Many find them really nice.

Best Water Physics in Building Game: No other game lets you build crazy stuff with water physics this good, according to reviewers. The water physics are the best seen for a building game.

Water Physics Broken: Water physics are widely criticized as unrealistic and frustrating, with issues like boats capsizing, water flowing through solid walls, and lack of buoyancy control. This severely impacts the core gameplay experience.

Short Campaign Duration: Many players report that the new campaign is very short, with some finishing it in under an hour. The small number of levels and quick completion make the price feel unjustified.

Technical Issues and Bugs: Numerous bugs are reported, including crashes, save corruption, and freezes. These issues significantly hinder the player experience.

Uninspired Level Design: Levels are often described as rehashes of existing content, lacking originality and challenge. Many levels can be easily bypassed using flying machines, ignoring the water theme.

Unbalanced and Useless Blocks: Many new blocks are considered useless or overpowered, with hard caps that cannot be bypassed. This reduces the incentive to experiment.

Water Physics Added: The DLC and base game feature water physics with waves, buoyancy, and capsizing mechanics. Water interactions affect vehicles and the environment.

Water and Sea Blocks: The DLC includes new building blocks and items, such as harpoons, screw blocks, and rounded wood blocks. These blocks enable water and sea-related constructions.

Sea Campaign and Parts: The DLC adds a sea campaign with ocean-themed levels and parts such as sails. Players can build water vehicles using new components.

Sandbox Mode Added: The DLC includes a sandbox mode with new blocks and an ocean sandbox for ship sailing and performance testing. Players can experiment freely.

Build Boats and Submarines: Players can build their own vessels, including boats and submarines. The game provides parts and mechanics for constructing these watercraft.

Severe performance issues reported: Multiple players report extremely poor optimization, with some unable to run the game on non-high-end PCs or experiencing single-digit frame rates even at lowest settings. This affects both base game and DLC, with specific hardware configurations struggling to maintain playable performance.

Crashes and freezes occur: Players encounter crashes when building ships, black screens, and freezes when entering the game. These stability issues severely impact the overall experience and are considered significant enough to lower review scores.

Inconsistent performance experiences: While some players report surprisingly lightweight performance and comfortable experiences on mid-range hardware, others face severe issues. This disparity suggests optimization may vary greatly depending on system configuration and game scenarios.

Sea rendering and fans stressed: Sea rendering causes very high CPU/GPU load, and fans spin at full speed even at the stage select screen. This indicates inefficient resource usage in specific game areas.

Heavy loading compared to base: The DLC is reported to be heavier to load than the base game, adding to the perception of poor optimization. This affects players' patience and overall enjoyment.

Worth the price: Reviewers consider the DLC reasonably priced and worth the cost, with some saying it is definitely worth getting for the price. This value-for-money angle appears frequently in positive feedback.

Strongly recommended for purchase: Multiple reviewers give a straightforward recommendation to buy, describing the game or DLC as worthwhile and a good purchase. This is the most common positive sentiment across clusters.

Good value for Besiege fans: Many players recommend the DLC specifically to those who already enjoy Besiege, calling it a no-brainer or a way to support the developers. It is seen as a natural extension for fans of the base game.

Not recommended for everyone: A number of reviewers do not recommend the DLC, citing lack of balance, annoying content, or not being worth it. These negative views are less common but still notable.

Appeals to sandbox and building fans: Reviewers highlight that the DLC is great for those who enjoy sandbox gameplay, building complex vehicles, or nautical engineering. It adds value for creative players.

Community fair range: $7.99 - $12.99.

Story completion: 1.5h.

Session length: 1.0h.

The game is reported as fun immediately through its water mechanics, new blocks, and level-editor or friend play, with friction from shallow level content and missing NPC ships rather than a delayed click.

Friction: only a handful of levels feel like a tutorial; missing NPC ships in the level editor; not enough kraken or boat content in the level editor for friend play; uncertainty about whether the game will click.

Unlock drivers: DLC update added new levels, kraken, and other content to the level editor.

Sandbox Contraption Engineer: Spends most time in sandbox and the in-game level editor, tinkering with ocean physics to build watercraft, designing custom levels, and setting up PvP or co-op contraption showdowns with friends. Motivation: Unrestricted creative expression — building and iterating on boats, submarines, and other machines, then sharing or testing them in custom scenarios. Stance: buy.

Campaign Completionist: Plays the extended campaign front to back, using the water mechanics to solve each staged challenge and hunting the satisfaction of fully finishing the DLC. Motivation: Working through structured levels and challenges to completion, treating the DLC as a puzzle-driven journey. Stance: buy.

Besiege Loyalist: Continues playing much as they always have in the base game, applying existing engineering habits to the new ocean setting and enjoying it alongside friends who already play Besiege. Motivation: Staying engaged with a beloved sandbox franchise by consuming more official content and recapturing the feeling of classic expansions. Stance: buy.

Adds New Levels and Items: The DLC expands the base game with new levels, modules, and items, including a sea campaign and a new wet dimension. Players gain access to water-themed content such as ocean campaigns, aquatic blocks, and sandbox elements.

Affordable Price Point: Reviewers generally consider the DLC's price to be reasonable or not expensive, often described as barely not a loss. The affordable price makes it accessible to many players.

Sea-Themed Content Expansion: The DLC is themed around water and adds a sea campaign, ocean levels, and water-based building parts. It shifts the game from land and air to include naval combat and exploration.

Adds Replayability and Sandbox: The expansion increases replayability by adding a sandbox mode and new content that extends the game's lifespan. Some reviewers highlight that it offers many additional hours of gameplay.

Initial Release Lacked Polish: The DLC initially had limited levels and blocks usable only in water, and was considered inferior to the base game in design quality. However, subsequent updates added more levels and quality-of-life improvements.