It's one of those games that make you wish that Steam had a more complex grading system rather than the binary one. Crashlands is a game that reminds many (including myself) of Don't Starve. In my opinion it is to Don't Starve, what American remakes are to European original films. It's goofier and more flashy, but in the process loses the idea of what makes the original so genius.


Crashlands drops you into an alien world, where you need to craft and help the locals to retrieve the packages lost during the crash landing. You have to scavenge and hunt mobs for materials that allow you to craft better gear and challenge harder mobs. It's actually fun for the first few hours, until you notice, this is it, that's basically the whole game. Just grind to craft another workstation, another weapon, another armour. It might have been okay as one of the possible activities, but it gets really old when it's the only activity available. And you have to do it a lot. There are 35 levels of equipment and they increment in twos. This means, the same gameplay loop has to be repeated around 17 times, that's at least 10 times too many. It's also possible to 'domesticate' pets, until you notice, that it's basically another part of the crafting system as the domesticated pets create materials which you'll need to create your weapons and armours with. It doesn't really help that the design of most of the gear is rather uninspiring. You can have the same sword/axe/helmet/etc. every 2 levels. I mean, it looks different, but the only actual difference is that it deals a bit more damage than the same item of the lower tier and a bit less damage than the item of the next tier. Only the gadgets and devices are a small breath of fresh air, at least some of them offer interesting, new mechanics.

Another gameplay element that's gravely underdeveloped is base building. There are possibilities of building furniture, plants and some other random stuff, but they (mostly) serve no purpose. You can just put them around if you feel like it, but there isn't really any good reason to do so. The only things that are actually needed are workstations, which allow you to craft better and better gear (there's like 20 of them) and pets nest. The rest of furniture might as well not exist.

The enemies are nicely designed in terms of their looks and attack patterns, however, they all suffer from one major problem - bullet sponging. Most of the time you'll find yourself slapping the enemies with your ineffective weapon for mediocre damage and just running around to not get hit. When you get better weapons, you'll move on to other enemies which will have the same spongey feeling to them. On the other hand enemies attacks welcome you to the world of hurt. Most special enemies will deal enough damage to one-shot you. There are many defensive stats, but at some point you'll probably notice, that the most important one is indeed the HP, that lets you survive the one hit and quickly heal up, the rest probably matters, but there isn't any in-game explanation of what do they exactly do. Like what does 20% toughness do? Does it decrease the physical damage by 20%? More? Less? Does it mean 100% toughness makes you invulnerable to physical damage? Who knows...

Enemies' attacks usually give you a lot of time to dodge, but it's unfortunately balanced with the speed your character is moving. By far one of the most frustrating things about Crashlands is the fact that most of the time you're literally crawling through the world. Being able to activate the 'turbo mode' helps a bit, but you can't have 100% uptime on it, so that sucks. Something like a Don't Starve's 'Walking stick' would be a great help to the game - that is an item that allows you to walk really fast outside of combat, but has to be switched to a weapon during combat, so it would still not be that easy to dodge the attacks.

There are also some minor bugs in the game, where quests aren't properly marked on the map or your teleporting doesn't work the first time you click (happens A LOT). Not that big of a deal in the end, but it does show the lack of polish of the game.


The story initially got me interested. It was a bit goofy, a bit crazy but it held up. I was following it rather closely until the end of Savannah, the first act. After that though, I was a bit underwhelmed with the game mechanics and just felt like finishing it up for the sake of being done with it, reading just a part here and there to still know what's going on. Reaching the last level, Tundra, I was so worn out I would just skip every dialogue ASAP. It didn't matter anyway and it did feel stretched just for the sake of having three acts.

This might have been different if the quests were a bit more creative, but unfortunately they aren't. 90% of the quests will be your typical 'kill this/gather that/talk to someone'. As I mentioned before, it might be interesting enough for the first act, but after that you'll find just skipping most of the dialogues and then checking your quests screen for the item that you actually need to gather up to finish the quest.


For me the strongest asset of this game. Crashlands looks neat. It's colourful and it feels alive. Even though most of your gear does the same, it looks differently, based on the materials that were used in the crafting process. The enemies and allies look a bit (positively) weird, which fits the goofy, alien theme of the game. The animations are fluid, damage indicators clear and you can easily spot all the materials as they have their distinctive looks.

My only complaint here would be the lack of possibility (at least I haven't found it) to disable screenshake. I always turn it off in any game I play, and I found it as annoying in Crashlands as in any other game.


I actually liked the music of the game of the game and I think I had it on for most part of the game. It was nothing to write home about, but it also didn't get on my nerves, which is important, as the game is about 30 hours long and you'll be hearing lots of it on repeat.

The sounds were mostly well chosen. Enemy sounds were fitting, 'juicy' sounds were 'juicy' enough. No complaints there.

On the other hand, the person who decided to put the 'thumping' tree in the game, should really re-evaluate how it impacts the playthrough. Hearing that annoying sound for 'roughly' the 8 hours you spend in the last act was stuff of nightmares.


Crashlands does some things good, it does most things mediocre and a few things - plain bad. It is even a great game up until the point where you notice you've basically seen everything and still have around 20 hours of grind left. If it took 10 hours to complete, this review would probably even be a positive one. It's just, that the game is stretched to almost 30 hours, but the content is just not there anymore past the first act. I mean, you'll see new monsters and the story progresses, but it doesn't feel different enough to justify it.

If I were to describe Crashlands in one word it would be 'uninspired'. The gameplay design just doesn't change one thing and you simply can't have players doing the same for almost 30 hours, it's boring and frankly, quite tiring. The only thing I could think of after I've beaten the final boss was the LoTR's 'It's over, it's done', I was happy to finally finish it and I know, I won't be coming back.

It's one of those games that make you wish that Steam had a more complex grading system rather than the binary one. Crashlands is a game that reminds many (including myself) of Don't Starve. In my opinion it is to Don't Starve, what American remakes are to European original films. It's goofier and more flashy, but in the process loses the idea of what makes the original so genius. [h1] Gameplay [/h1] Crashlands drops you into an alien world, where you need to craft and help the locals to retrieve the packages lost during the crash landing. You have to scavenge and hunt mobs for materials that allow you to craft better gear and challenge harder mobs. It's actually fun for the first few hours, until you notice, this is it, that's basically the whole game. Just grind to craft another workstation, another weapon, another armour. It might have been okay as one of the possible activities, but it gets really old when it's the only activity available. And you have to do it a lot. There are 35 levels of equipment and they increment in twos. This means, the same gameplay loop has to be repeated around 17 times, that's at least 10 times too many. It's also possible to 'domesticate' pets, until you notice, that it's basically another part of the crafting system as the domesticated pets create materials which you'll need to create your weapons and armours with. It doesn't really help that the design of most of the gear is rather uninspiring. You can have the same sword/axe/helmet/etc. every 2 levels. I mean, it looks different, but the only actual difference is that it deals a bit more damage than the same item of the lower tier and a bit less damage than the item of the next tier. Only the gadgets and devices are a small breath of fresh air, at least some of them offer interesting, new mechanics. Another gameplay element that's gravely underdeveloped is base building. There are possibilities of building furniture, plants and some other random stuff, but they (mostly) serve no purpose. You can just put them around if you feel like it, but there isn't really any good reason to do so. The only things that are actually needed are workstations, which allow you to craft better and better gear (there's like 20 of them) and pets nest. The rest of furniture might as well not exist. The enemies are nicely designed in terms of their looks and attack patterns, however, they all suffer from one major problem - bullet sponging. Most of the time you'll find yourself slapping the enemies with your ineffective weapon for mediocre damage and just running around to not get hit. When you get better weapons, you'll move on to other enemies which will have the same spongey feeling to them. On the other hand enemies attacks welcome you to the world of hurt. Most special enemies will deal enough damage to one-shot you. There are many defensive stats, but at some point you'll probably notice, that the most important one is indeed the HP, that lets you survive the one hit and quickly heal up, the rest probably matters, but there isn't any in-game explanation of what do they exactly do. Like what does 20% toughness do? Does it decrease the physical damage by 20%? More? Less? Does it mean 100% toughness makes you invulnerable to physical damage? Who knows... Enemies' attacks usually give you a lot of time to dodge, but it's unfortunately balanced with the speed your character is moving. By far one of the most frustrating things about Crashlands is the fact that most of the time you're literally crawling through the world. Being able to activate the 'turbo mode' helps a bit, but you can't have 100% uptime on it, so that sucks. Something like a Don't Starve's 'Walking stick' would be a great help to the game - that is an item that allows you to walk really fast outside of combat, but has to be switched to a weapon during combat, so it would still not be that easy to dodge the attacks. There are also some minor bugs in the game, where quests aren't properly marked on the map or your teleporting doesn't work the first time you click (happens A LOT). Not that big of a deal in the end, but it does show the lack of polish of the game. [h1] Story and Quests [/h1] The story initially got me interested. It was a bit goofy, a bit crazy but it held up. I was following it rather closely until the end of Savannah, the first act. After that though, I was a bit underwhelmed with the game mechanics and just felt like finishing it up for the sake of being done with it, reading just a part here and there to still know what's going on. Reaching the last level, Tundra, I was so worn out I would just skip every dialogue ASAP. It didn't matter anyway and it did feel stretched just for the sake of having three acts. This might have been different if the quests were a bit more creative, but unfortunately they aren't. 90% of the quests will be your typical 'kill this/gather that/talk to someone'. As I mentioned before, it might be interesting enough for the first act, but after that you'll find just skipping most of the dialogues and then checking your quests screen for the item that you actually need to gather up to finish the quest. [h1] Graphics [/h1] For me the strongest asset of this game. Crashlands looks neat. It's colourful and it feels alive. Even though most of your gear does the same, it looks differently, based on the materials that were used in the crafting process. The enemies and allies look a bit (positively) weird, which fits the goofy, alien theme of the game. The animations are fluid, damage indicators clear and you can easily spot all the materials as they have their distinctive looks. My only complaint here would be the lack of possibility (at least I haven't found it) to disable screenshake. I always turn it off in any game I play, and I found it as annoying in Crashlands as in any other game. [h1] Sound and Music [/h1] I actually liked the music of the game of the game and I think I had it on for most part of the game. It was nothing to write home about, but it also didn't get on my nerves, which is important, as the game is about 30 hours long and you'll be hearing lots of it on repeat. The sounds were mostly well chosen. Enemy sounds were fitting, 'juicy' sounds were 'juicy' enough. No complaints there. On the other hand, the person who decided to put the 'thumping' tree in the game, should really re-evaluate how it impacts the playthrough. Hearing that annoying sound for 'roughly' the 8 hours you spend in the last act was stuff of nightmares. [h1] Overall [/h1] Crashlands does some things good, it does most things mediocre and a few things - plain bad. It is even a great game up until the point where you notice you've basically seen everything and still have around 20 hours of grind left. If it took 10 hours to complete, this review would probably even be a positive one. It's just, that the game is stretched to almost 30 hours, but the content is just not there anymore past the first act. I mean, you'll see new monsters and the story progresses, but it doesn't feel different enough to justify it. If I were to describe Crashlands in one word it would be 'uninspired'. The gameplay design just doesn't change one thing and you simply can't have players doing the same for almost 30 hours, it's boring and frankly, quite tiring. The only thing I could think of after I've beaten the final boss was the LoTR's 'It's over, it's done', I was happy to finally finish it and I know, I won't be coming back.