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Okay, I’m getting a very Skyrim-y feel about all of this…
It’s no secret that I’m a sucker for survival crafting games that don’t start with “mine.” Savage Lands is just such a game with an apt savage theme. You are Jim McCave-man, some sort of viking-esque barbarian whose unlcothed butt just washed up on the icy shore of nowhere. You’ll craft all the general basics that you’d expect to find–weapons, tools, clothing, fire and shelter. Really, if that was it, there wouldn’t be anything special about this one. However…
Here there be monsters! Yes, skeletons, demons and foul fantasy beasts populate this world, including a mighty dragon on the top of some nearby tower. That being said, this game needs some love. At its current state it looks like there could be some Tier 2 fun within its code, but just barely. Unlike a similar game, 7 Days to Die, you can’t break down any component in the environment. In fact, I don’t think you can change the topography either. What you can do is set up a series of pre-built structures. This has the advantage of a simpler quicker setup on the part of the player–they can assemble realistic-looking structures without having to spend hours designing and building them out of the available cubes of materials often found in other crafting games. While this does come at the cost of customizability, the biggest downfall is the limited number of them available. There’s less than two dozen, which is enough to play around with but leaves one wanting more.
Combat and hitboxes are unfortunately messy as well, which is disappointing considering that the enemies themselves are interesting. You can dual wield in this game which is new for me in a crafting survival game and I love what they’ve done with the health and stamina bar. The more cold you are, the lower your Max HP is. The hungrier you are, the lower your Max Stamina is. Beyond that though, there’s probably not a strong reason to play this survival-crafter over another, save that you want to play something new in the genre. And hey, it is exciting to think of how we’re supposed to take down that dragon. Maybe… uh… rocks?
Err… that’s the dragon by the way. I couldn’t exactly get a good view of him.