Bee Simulator: The Hive Review (PC)

With pollen and honeysuckle, flustered wings and striped setae, the hive beats once more for another season of honeycomb-centric adventure and beeswax-bloated simulation goodness. In an effort to nudge the colony towards its next home, Bee Simulator: The Hive returns to give its wings to a brand-new sweet and gloopy whirlwind wonder of waxy aviation and fleeting serenity of a natural environment. Oh, it’s all still so natural and pulpy. But here, a hive mind exists within the fundamental universe of an otherwise lonesome cortex. It’s still the same Bee Simulator — but with more additions, and thrice as much nectar as the original. It is, in short, Bee Simulator 1.5. Take from that what you will, honey hoarders.

Bee Simulator: The Hive is exactly what it describes itself as on its tin: a two-for-one bee-centric simulator in which players—the winged puppeteers born to a Central Park-like world—navigate a summery sandbox of pollen and idyllic waters, seasonal flourishes and waxy blemishes, and ultimately utilize their primal powers to both build and evolve their own colonies. In other words, it’s Bee Simulator with the bonus DLC, The Hive, bundled into the same beehive. With few quality-of-life updates and freshly minted features, what you see is what you get: a bumbling duo of familiar assets and pollen that’s ripe for the taking.

If you’re unsure whether to flutter your wings to the newest “installment” in the Bee Simulator universe, then be sure to stick with us a while as we wax over the details and extract the nectar. And no, the puns aren’t likely to end at any point in the near future. Is Bee Simulator: The Hive a sting or a miss? Let’s find out, shall we?

Honey & The Hive

For those who actively chose to remain under a rock back in 2023, Bee Simulator essentially attained mass acclaim thanks to its authentically apt world design and buttery smooth aviation mechanics. The good news here is that, although five years have passed, it hasn’t lost sight of that picture-perfect composition — like, at all. True to its roots, The Hive boasts a soft and effortlessly detailed open world experience that captures the beating heart of a “great things in small packages” premise. Like before, it centers its entire structure around the life of a bee, and the highs and lows of their immensely complex existence as some of the most fascinating creatures on the planet.

First and foremost, we have the world—a thematically complex ode to Central Park, where each monolithic borough comes with its own unique flora, structural features, and crags and crevices to explore. For an open-world sim, I will say this: it isn’t exactly lacking in points of interest or places to unearth. Similar to the likes of Grounded, I suppose — the world feels enormous, and although it’s more or less condensed into something as adequately sized as a park, it still manages to cram as much as humanely possible into the nooks and crannies of its blueprint. And the best part is, you aren’t restricted by the laws of aviation; you instead have the luxury of being able to explore all aspects of the terrain and its surroundings. That’s a huge plus in my books, and something that I wish would be implemented in alternate critter-based sims.

Sting Like a Bee

The gameplay here isn’t particularly awe-inspiring, though it does generate a wholehearted message that deserves acknowledgment. As the title suggests, it’s all about being a bee—a duty that comes with its fair share of responsibilities, like having to extract pollen and complete short communal fetch quests to help the hive grow and prosper and what have you. It features a bit more than that, with trappings that frequent the likes of base-building and defensive play also offering a role in the grand scheme of things. But for the most part the journey, things are rather predictable. Yet, it’s therapy in a bottle; it’s an easy way to spend several hours whilst you aimlessly knock back and forth between jobs. Plus, given that it opens up the hive for numerous customizable options and resources, it does fashion enough to keep you exploring new ways to flutter your wings.

The mechanics aren’t stupendously complex, nor are they easy to master, truth be told. With that, there is a bit of a learning curve to overcome here, more so given that the game does, unfortunately, suffer from a couple of damp patches and control problems. It’s to be expected, I guess, what with the game centering its premise on erratically behaved bees. Even still, it does foster some minor technical issues. Nevertheless, with thanks to its recent surge in quality-of-life updates, it isn’t quite as bad as it once was back in its heyday.

Verdict

Bee Simulator: The Hive provides a definitive way to enjoy all of the sweet, sweet nectar that the original version was able to bring to the beehive back in 2023, with the added expansions and general QoL updates adding more than just a simple rehash of the previous incarnation. Suffice it to say, it’s all here; it’s the 2.0 that we’ve been yearning to get our prickly prints on for the best part of half a decade — and perhaps even the launch pad for a potential sequel, if and when the time feels right for the developer to broaden the hive, so to speak.

Although Bee Simulator: The Hive is predictable at best, it does cough up a solid educational experience that’s both pleasant on the eye and teeming with all of the flourishing blots of a decent-sized open world game. Is it the “bee all, end all” of critter-based RPGs? Not really, no — but it’s a heck of a lot better than Goat Simulator, and that’s saying something. Two completely different ideas with different visionary approaches, I’ll admit — but you get the point.

If you missed out on the opportunity to whisk yourself away to the idyllic world of Bee Simulator 2020, then perhaps now is the perfect time to flounder and flap your tiny wings to the beating heart of a brand new hive. It isn’t quite the buzz of the town these days, but it is still a good place to wipe your feet and enjoy the simple pleasures of microscopic life.