Smalland Survive the Wilds Switch 2 Review

Smalland Survive the Wilds Switch 2 Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2

I’m a huge fan of open-world survival games, and I absolutely love spending time in Minecraft, Ark, and Subnautica. But what happens when you take a huge fan of the genre and make them tiny? You get Smalland Survive the Wilds, a survival adventure in a similar vein to Grounded, giving off serious “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” energy. What’s It Like? Armour up, set up camp, and avoid the storms as we review Smalland Survive the Wilds for Nintendo Switch 2.

Smalland Survive the Wilds has a rather interesting story in the sense that it is set in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have vanished, and you play as the Smallfolk, an almost fae-like humanoid race that’s tiny in size. The Smallfolk are preparing to reclaim their place in the overworld, and after being attacked by a wild hornet, you are thrust into a grand adventure of tiny proportions. The story almost serves as a tutorial and does not need to be followed immediately. There are several key NPCs who teach you new skills and recipes, and if you want to rush through the main quest, you could probably finish it in around 10 to 12 hours. That said, Smalland Survive the Wilds could easily last hundreds of hours thanks to its open-ended nature and online modes, but more on that later.

Gameplay can be experienced in either first or third person and follows many familiar survival mechanics, including gathering food, building shelter, upgrading weapons and armour, and defeating all manner of creatures as you climb to the top of the food chain. It is all handled rather well thanks to the robust crafting system, varied biomes, and several clever gameplay elements that help Smalland establish its own identity. The combat system, for example, feels a little stiff at first, relying heavily on stamina management and dodge rolling out of harm’s way. Early on, combat felt fairly basic, but as I upgraded my armour and faced stronger enemies, I found myself parrying deadly attacks, chaining together combos, and desperately healing mid-fight during some epic boss encounters. These boss battles almost act as skill checks, and defeating them can unlock entirely new gameplay systems, including creature taming.

Once I unlocked creature taming, the world opened up even further, allowing me to traverse the environment on a grasshopper or have a ladybug carry my excess gear. You can also hatch additional insects using an incubator to slowly build an army of loyal followers. It is not an easy process either, as incubating becomes its own defensive challenge where hostile creatures attempt to destroy your egg before it hatches. There are a lot of gameplay systems here that work extremely well, but there is also one major element that still needs work, and that is the UI.

When crafting or interacting with NPCs, the interface can feel unnecessarily convoluted. Selecting options is done by pressing A to cycle through menus, X to confirm selections, and adding or subtracting materials uses different face buttons instead of simply navigating with the D-pad. Crafting and claiming items also requires separate button presses, making basic interactions feel far more complicated than they should be. I am not entirely sure why it was designed this way, but it definitely creates friction during regular play. Despite this, I still found myself having a great time with Smalland Survive the Wilds. I appreciated that the game does not constantly hold your hand with lengthy tutorials, although that freedom does come with a fairly steep learning curve when trying to locate resources like stone, unlock armour recipes, or fully understand creature taming systems.

The game also features multiplayer support, allowing you to survive alongside friends or jump into public servers through the built-in server browser if you are looking to meet new players. Your existing character can also be carried across different worlds, which is a nice feature for long-term progression and co-op play. As I was reviewing Smalland Survive the Wilds prior to the game’s official launch, I was unfortunately unable to test the multiplayer functionality for this review.

Smalland Survive the Wilds can be a bit of a mixed bag visually. On one hand, the world itself is beautifully crafted, and there was a genuine sense of wonder and discovery while running through towering grass fields and climbing over giant tree roots. The different biomes all feel distinct, creature designs are genuinely awe-inspiring, and the world feels alive, especially during the daytime when sunlight cuts through the environment and brings everything to life. That said, the visual compromises on Nintendo Switch 2 are hard to ignore. Resolution and texture quality take a noticeable hit, giving the game an overall blurry appearance that can become distracting at times. Smallfolk character models do not look particularly detailed either, and interior environments often feel flat and lacking in visual polish compared to the impressive outdoor areas.

What makes this even more surprising is that performance itself feels inconsistent despite those visual compromises. Out in the open world, the game generally stays close to the 30 FPS mark and remains relatively smooth for the most part. However, interior environments can really struggle, and even player-built outdoor bases with only minimal detail sometimes suffer from performance drops. It gives the impression that the game still lacks a layer of optimisation polish. I also encountered a few technical issues during my time with the game. On several occasions while crafting, the menu would suddenly go completely blank, forcing me to back out and reopen it just to continue crafting items. It is not game-breaking, but these small issues do add up over time.

For my Smallfolk looking into accessibility, there are a few options available to make your time above ground a little more comfortable. These include UI scaling, an arachnophobia mode, camera shake adjustments, button remapping for accessibility controllers, and options to adjust depth of field intensity. As always, I recommend doing further research to determine whether Smalland Survive the Wilds suits your personal accessibility needs.

At just under $53 AUD, Smalland Survive the Wilds is a great open-world survival game that just needs a little more polish. It is still an incredibly fun experience to explore, build up a base, and lose yourself in while crafting away for hours at a time, despite some technical hiccups along the journey. Its robust crafting system, combined with its strong sense of wonder and exploration, helps Smalland feel like a grand adventure shrunk down onto a handheld device. If you have a bunch of friends looking for a new adventure, or simply want to explore the great unknown on the back of a grasshopper, Smalland Survive the Wilds is well worth braving the wilderness for.

So, What’s It Like? Smallands Survive the Wilds is like Ark, crossed with Grounded.

In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t influence my score.

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