New survival game Smalland is selling like hot cakes on Steam – but why?

At first glance, Smalland looks like Grounded – but it is much more realistic. What does the new game offer on Steam and for whom is it worth it?

The joke is so close, we have to bring it: The new survival game Smalland: Survive the Wilds is full of bugs and that”s exactly why gamers love it.

Bugs because it”s full of bugs, you understand. Okay, now that we”ve got that out of our system, we”ll tell you why Smalland is just morphing into a Steam success and why, despite a similar setting, it”s quite different from the very popular Grounded.

Tiny World in a big way

Smalland turns you into a tiny elf and throws you into the wilderness, where blades of grass are as tall as redwood trees for you and pebbles become mighty rocks. You are not alone, but encounter creepy-crawlies galore: Wasps, spiders, grasshoppers and so on. And yes, many of them see you as a tempting meal.

To survive, you”ll gather lots of resources, build a shelter, craft tools, weapons and armour – just what you do in a survival game. Sounds a lot like Grounded so far? True, but there are some important differences.

More realism: While Grounded is quite cute and cartoon-like, Smalland focuses on grim survival combat, which is closer to classic survival.

Mounts: A feature that many Grounded fans desperately wanted. In Smalland you can tame insects and then swing onto their backs. Spiders climb up trees with you, dragonflies whiz through the air, grasshoppers, well, hop.

More multiplayer: Grounded offers co-op for up to four players, Smalland allows up to ten. You roam the world together, building forts, helping each other survive and so on.

Seasons and biomes: In this respect, Smalland is more reminiscent of Valheim than Grounded. You are not limited to a summer garden, but experience seasonal changes and different open world environments with their own flora and fauna.

Already a success in Early Access

On Steam and Epic, Smalland launched into Early Access on 29 March 2023. The player numbers have been rising steadily since release, as a look at (SteamDB) proves. The survival game is also currently getting some attention on Twitch.

The almost 1,500 user reviews are 82 percent positive so far. They praise the challenging difficulty level and the scope, which is unusually large for an Early Access title. Performance problems have a negative impact in some reviews, but only a small circle seems to be affected by this.

What else is to be added? Early Access is planned to last between six and twelve months. During this time, the developers want to expand Smalland, for example with more creatures, more environments and more story quests.

Editor”s verdict

The film “Darling I Shrunk the Children” definitely left its mark on my childhood. While the other kids were building castles in the sandbox, I squatted fascinated in front of ant hills and watched the crawlers dragging prey and building roads. During holidays at Grandma”s, I would collect every insect I could find, carefully put them in a jar (with air holes!!) and make a mini-zoo for a few days before releasing them all back into the wild.

So

games that take me into this wonderful world of tiny creatures have a very easy time with me. And apart from that, Smalland just looks really good! But I don”t dare to play it alone, I don”t have the hardcore survival experience. As soon as I”ve found some comrades-in-arms, however, I definitely want to be shrunk!

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