Wildmender

Wildmender is a beautiful game that manages to balance cosy gardening with epic adventure and ruthless survival. One of my favourite games of the year. And you can hug frogs.

Wildmender is one of those cozy farm games that you can lose yourself in for hours; just don’t forget to keep yourself hydrated.

Wildmender is not just an another survival game, it's a highly enjoyable game where we beautify a desert and embark on a personal journey along the way.

The ambition of the game design makes it easy to overlook Wildmender‘s technical flaws. There’s just so much to mess around with, whether that be exploring the land looking for shrines, ghosts and graves, turning up new seeds and seeing what they grow, figuring out how to make rare hybrid crops, or just hanging out at home base to spruce the place up after un-collected seeds sprout new plants that clutter up the landscape.

If you’re keen on a new setting and don’t mind the performance issues that come with it, Wildmender may be worth checking out while taking a break from other titles. Otherwise, it’s a serviceable but ultimately forgettable sandbox experience.

At first the game felt a bit dull and boring, but the more I explored and the more I did, I got hooked and don't want to stop playing. I had fun and enjoyed playing this game. Love creating and making the gardens how I want.Only things I don't like was how hard it was to find some plant types. Such as Wild glowsticks only had 1 location of 2 plants, I spent days real time trying to find them same with some others. Also annoying how much time it takes to water plants every day and the water flow and mechanics are really janky. The text goes by so very slow and there is no way to speed it up if you are a fast reader.

Good- Aesthetic looks nice with decent lighting and shadows. The exploration and sense of discovery are on point, at least in the early going. Water mechanic, which necessitates avoiding the sun, is unique and challenging. Intriguing mechanics like reviving dead plants, generating vines to climb and more. Bad- Some environmental textures look extremely substandard. Iffy performance, even when playing on Medium settings. Starts to feel a bit stale after the opening hours, especially with lackluster enemy variety. New biomes also don't feel all that interesting. Gear is mostly lackluster and combat is dull. Building and terraforming don't feel very intuitive. Thoughts- Overall, Wildmender has an interesting premise that needs more time to grow into its own. Some aspects, like the construction and terraforming, can be improved over time. However, in terms of progression, combat, exploration and immersion, it’s competent enough without breaking the mold or drastically changing things up, even a few hours **** you’re keen on a new setting and don’t mind the performance issues that come with it, Wildmender may be worth checking out while taking a break from other titles. Otherwise, it’s a serviceable but ultimately forgettable sandbox experience.