While survival titles haven’t typically managed to turn around my general hesitation with the genre, there have absolutely been a few that have used some sense of adventure or a better focus on action to help draw me in. Resource gathering and crafting can only typically take my interest so far, while some people enjoy that as their central loop I’ve found when it doesn’t serve something much more engaging I tend to check out quickly. To its credit, I believe that Smalland does have the ambition to give the player more, I just don’t know that it’s enough for people who aren’t just die hard survival fans.

Simply addressing what I’d consider to be the elephant beetle in the room, I don’t know how anyone who has played or seen the game Grounded can’t end up thinking this was made to try to capitalize on its modest popularity. Sure, in this cast you’re not playing as humans who’ve been shrunk down, but instead as Smallfolk who have returned to the surface to find it to be fraught with challenges to be conquered. Working solo, or even better with some friends if you’re able to put some together online, your goal will be to build helpful tools and structures, tame all manner of creatures who’ll help you travel faster and plain look like a badass, and tackle the challenges this over-sized world will throw at you. Whether that’s in the form of nasty critters, unpredictable storms, or other unexpected surprises, you’ll need to be prepared.

Much like the aforementioned Grounded, I really do think that without having people to play this with you’re greatly diminishing its value. Unfortunately, this isn’t the sort of game where popping in and out of some random servers will suit you though, to be successful you’ll want to truly build a community over a period of time. But that’s a real challenge since you’ll need to continue to hook up with the same people and whoever created the base server as the host needs to be online. Lacking that sense of community and purpose, there’s some adventure here but it feels more hollow. If the theming and sense of scale has some appeal to you though, there’s some potential for fun to be had here.