Ylands, developed by Bohemia Interactive, is best described as a cross between Minecraft and Sea of Thieves. This title has been out for some years and has now landed on the Nintendo Switch for the price of $24.99 usd.
Those familiar with Ylands may reminisce with a bit of a sour taste in their mouths. The game was originally marketed as a pay-to-own title and eventually turned free to play, locking tons of content behind micro transactions. This of course rubbed gamers the wrong way!
However, there’s no need to fret if you plan on purchasing this game for the Switch. Ylands on The Nintendo Switch gives you total access to all of its content once you purchase the game. Upon purchasing, you will experience everything adventure and creative mode have to offer. Very minor DLC can be purchased in the Nintendo eShop but, these are things like pets and building plans.
With all of that being said, does the Nintendo Switch Version of Ylands give its players the ultimate fulfillment in adventure, exploration and freedom to craft that is kin to games like Minecraft and Sea of Thieves? Let’s dive in and discuss it!
A Pleasant Design
The art style in Ylands immediately grabbed my attention! As a fan of survival games, art direction is one of the most gripping factors. I’m thinking of Minecraft’s box and block nature or Grounded’s “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” influence with a visually stunning backyard and, in this aspect, Ylands beautifully creates its own path.
Bohemia Interactive crafted a truly endearing environment that propels you to explore.
There’re Adventures worth having!
Even greater than my adoration for the survival/crafting genre is my affinity with adventure and, there is plenty of it to be experienced in Ylands.
You begin by creating your character and being placed into the Classy Adventurer’s Guild (this will essentially serve as your tutorial for the basic controls). Upon completion, you’re presented with the task of seeking a character. Of course, as you venture to find said character, you end up resourceless and stranded on the starting Yland. This is where players are taught the ins and outs of survival.
Eventually, the tutorial will have you construct a boat and you will gain the freedom to explore various islands at your hearts content. Albeit, you must first gain the appropriate amount of exploration points needed to unlock certain regions.
Ylands’ adventure mode consists of two mediums that are useful for gathering exploration points; there are story objectives and diary objectives.
Story objectives are, as its name implies, tasks players complete in order to push the narrative forward. For example, beginning your journey in starter Yland by gathering the necessary resources that push you to the next Yland in search of a specific character.
Next, there are diary based objectives. These objectives are more secondary in nature and are my favorite kind of tasks to fulfill in survival/crafting games. Diary objectives are ones that ask players to construct specific items in the game. For example, make your first torch or start your first campfire. The Diary objectives are supremely helpful in that they help players see aspects of the game that are easily passed over.
As mentioned before, completing Story and Diary objectives will nab you exploration points that are useful for the purpose of opening up new regions to explore.
Survive, survive, SURVIVE!!!
Like many other titles in the survival genre, crafting is vital for surviving and thriving. Ylands is no different in this department as it boasts a very extensive crafting mechanic. In your crafting menu, gamers will find the tech tree. This tree wields tons of recipes ranging from all the components found in a vehicle (boats, bigger boats, and even cars!), items useful for survival (medicine, lights, cooking), clothing, building infrastructures, and much, much more!
The crafting list in Ylands is top tier! The possibilities of what you can create are endless and really inspire a push for creativity. Ylands really aligns itself masterfully with the juggernauts of the crafting genre in this area.
Putting the brilliant crafting mechanic and list aside, Ylands consists of other mechanics typical to its kin. You’ll encounter a hunger system that is pretty passive and forgiving. There is also temperature damage that can occur when visiting particular biomes. Animal taming is also possible. These mechanics are fairly average in their execution and don’t present anything groundbreaking.
Creative Freedom
Finally, putting adventure mode to rest, Ylands offers you its Creative Mode. An all access, no holds barred outing for those players seeking an experience where creativity is the vehicle that propels the narrative forward. Much like Minecraft’s Creative Mode, gamers are really encouraged to let their imagination run wild in this mode. Nothing is off limits to you!
Where’s the Limit!?!
With the presence of a truly enjoyable crafting mechanic and a terrific experience to be had in completing objectives in the diary, Ylands for The Nintendo Switch is held back in only one area and that is found in the platform itself.
All the enjoyment within the Ylands is held back by the performance on the Nintendo Switch. Too often, there are unsightly pop ins when loading into a new Yland and the draw distance is really bad. These load ins are also met with really bad lags and slow downs when the game is running. There were also moments where the game totally crashed on me. Luckily, Ylands has a great auto save feature that constantly saves your progress otherwise, those crashes would have been disastrous.
The Verdict
Bohemia Interactive truly created a game worth drowning hundreds of hours into with Ylands. All of the necessary components that drive survival crafting games are present in this wonderful title.
Sadly, The Nintendo Switch, like a vacuum chamber, sucks the air of joy right out of this wonderful adventure. The technical issues present make it very difficult for me to recommend Ylands on the Nintendo Switch to anyone, even at its price of $24.99 usd.
Ylands is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC and Mobile.
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