Smalland: Survive the Wilds
Last updated: 2025-06-24
- Visually stunning and immersive miniature world.
- Balanced progression offers player freedom.
- Excellent cooperative multiplayer mode available.
- Familiar survival blended with unique elements.
- Clunky, unpolished combat mechanics hinder experience.
- Unfinished, lacking content and overall polish.
Emotions
Emotion: satisfaction
Emotion: frustration
Emotion: disappointment
Emotion: excitement
Emotion: joy
Verdict
Mixed
Summary
Positive 71% · Negative 29%. Score: 29 / 100
Positives:
- The game boasts impressive graphics, a distinct art style, and a visually appealing world. Reviewers consistently praise the detailed environments, immersive atmosphere, and overall aesthetic polish, making exploration and gameplay highly enjoyable. The game's visuals are frequently cited as a major strength.
- The game provides a balanced and engaging experience with its progression system, exploration, and combat. Reviewers appreciate the freedom to explore at their own pace, the rewarding sense of accomplishment, and the intuitive gameplay mechanics that avoid excessive grinding.
- The game is often compared to other survival titles like Grounded, Valheim and Ark, with reviewers noting similarities in gameplay mechanics and setting. Many reviewers feel that this game improves upon those formulas, with a unique blend of fantasy and survival elements.
- The game offers a unique experience by shrinking the player down to the size of an insect, creating a sense of wonder and danger as they explore a familiar world from a new perspective. Taming and interacting with insects, along with the overall sense of scale, are key highlights.
- The game offers a strong cooperative multiplayer experience, making exploration, survival, and combat more enjoyable with friends. The cooperative mode is praised for its user-friendliness and the ability for players to progress independently while still playing together.
Negatives:
- Combat is frequently described as clunky, stiff, and unrefined, with issues like inconsistent hitboxes, laggy animations, and unresponsive controls. The parry system is often unreliable, and enemies can feel like damage sponges. These issues make combat frustrating and unenjoyable.
- The game feels unfinished, unpolished, and lacking in content, resembling an early access title despite its full release. Reviewers cite missing features, repetitive gameplay, a weak or nonexistent story, and a general lack of depth as key issues. Many reviewers feel the game was released prematurely.
- Exploration feels unrewarding due to a lack of interesting discoveries, secrets, or unique points of interest. The world feels static and lifeless, with repetitive environments and little incentive to venture off the beaten path. Many reviewers compare the game unfavorably to other survival crafting games like Grounded and Valheim.
- Pets and mounts are poorly implemented, with clunky controls, pathfinding issues, and a tendency to interfere with gameplay. They often obstruct resource gathering, block the player's movement, and can be overpowered or useless depending on the stage of the game. Friendly fire between pets is also a common issue.
- The game suffers from subpar graphics, poor optimization, and numerous bugs. Reviewers report blurry textures, dated visuals, and performance issues even on high-end PCs. These technical issues detract from the overall experience and make the game feel unpolished.
Gameplay:
- The core gameplay loop revolves around exploration, resource gathering, crafting, base building, and combat against oversized insects and other creatures. Players can tame many of these creatures for combat support, inventory management, and traversal, including riding and flying mounts. The game world features survival mechanics like hunger, temperature, and weather, with seasons impacting gameplay.
- The game features a crafting system where players gather resources to create tools, weapons, armor, and building components. There's a tiered rarity system for equipment, and progression is tied to upgrading gear rather than developing character skills. Some reviewers note that crafting can be grindy, and unlocking recipes sometimes lacks clear in-game guidance.
- A key feature is the ability to build bases on giant trees and teleport them between different Great Trees found throughout the world. This mechanic encourages exploration and provides a unique way to relocate bases and access new areas. The main quest often involves interacting with NPCs and traveling between these trees.
- The game features a large and diverse map with various biomes, including forests, beaches, swamps, and sewers. The map is handcrafted, offering a balanced and well-developed world for players to explore. Seasons change the world visually, though some reviewers note that they have limited gameplay impact.
- Combat emphasizes dodging, parrying, and learning enemy attack patterns, drawing comparisons to Souls-like games. Players rely on timed blocks and rolls to evade attacks, as the character lacks special combat skills. This system requires careful observation and precise timing to succeed in battles against the various creatures.
Performance:
- Performance is inconsistent, with some players reporting smooth gameplay at high settings, while others experience stuttering, lag spikes, and FPS drops even on capable hardware. Some users also reported high GPU temperatures. The issues appear to be exacerbated in specific zones, during combat, or when many graphical elements are rendered.
- Players are encountering various bugs, including getting stuck in textures, resources not appearing, and falling through the map. Some bugs may require a restart of the game or computer.
- Players are reporting issues with character movement and environmental interaction. This includes inconsistent fall damage and the character failing to grab ledges when jumping, leading to frustrating gameplay experiences.
- Some players experienced disconnects and issues with seeing the host's map markers in multiplayer. These issues may disrupt the multiplayer experience.
- These points are too vague or generic to provide actionable feedback. They do not offer specific details about gameplay mechanics or features.
Recommendations:
- Reviews are mixed, with many saying the game has potential but needs more polish and content. Some recommend it, especially on sale or for fans of the genre, while others suggest waiting for updates or playing similar games like Grounded or Valheim instead. Some reviewers express excitement for the game's future, while others are disappointed with its current state.
- Many reviewers suggest waiting for a sale before purchasing the game. This is due to concerns about the game's current state, lack of content, or the presence of bugs. Some explicitly state that the game is not worth the full price but could be a good value at a discounted price.
- Many reviewers express hope for future updates, content additions, and improvements to the game. They are looking forward to seeing the game evolve and reach its full potential. Some reviewers specifically mention the roadmap and express excitement for planned features.
- The game is enjoyable solo or with friends, with some reviewers noting that animal companions enhance the solo experience. Playing with friends or on a server is generally recommended for a more engaging experience. Some reviewers suggest that the game is more suited for multiplayer than solo play.
- Many reviewers compare the game to Grounded, with some recommending Grounded as a better or more polished alternative. Others suggest that this game may appeal to those who have already played and enjoyed Grounded and are looking for something similar. Some reviewers feel that Grounded is superior in terms of story, content, or overall experience.
Miscellaneous:
- The game features a miniature world where players control tiny characters, such as faeries, and interact with realistically-sized insects and other creatures. This premise can be engaging but also unsettling for players sensitive to insects.
- The game shares similarities with other survival games like Grounded and Valheim, but offers its own unique twist on the genre. Some reviewers consider it a less polished or 'Euro jank' version of Grounded.
- The game lacks sufficient in-game documentation and tutorials, making it difficult for players to understand mechanics, quests, and lore. Much of the online documentation is outdated due to the game's early access development, further exacerbating the issue.
- The game is best enjoyed with friends, but the base-building mechanics have limitations. Only one player can own a plot at the Great Tree, and bases can disappear if the owner is offline, creating friction for cooperative play.
- The game features a dynamic weather and seasons system, but the implementation has inconsistencies. For example, insects and strawberries can appear in winter under the snow, which detracts from the immersion.
