Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR Review (Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro, & Meta Quest 2)

Well, well. Fans of the survival open-world adventure game Smalland: Survive the Wilds will be happy to know that a VR adaptation is out now on the Meta Quest platform. The game launched out of Early Access on February 15, 2024. It’s available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. You explore, scavenge, craft, and build in a vast, hostile world as a miniature species of mystical fairy creatures called “Smallfolk.” Many of the features from the flat-screen version remain in the VR adaptation. In fact, you may even go as far as to say that developer Merge Games has translated the flat-screen game into VR to a T. 

Of course, the protagonist, “Vanguard,” returns as an explorer and knight-like mini-person, venturing out on expeditions for the King in the “Overworld,” where humans used to live. However, the VR adaptation, at least makes the effort to craft a new story, one where you’re, once again, called upon to save the world. At the price tag of $29.99, you’re probably wondering just how worthwhile Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR is. Well, let’s get into it in our Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR review. Shall we?

Ten Times My Size

Straight out the gate, Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR drops you into a stunning world. You see lush greenery all around you. The areas bloom with woodsy mushrooms, strawberry trees, haphazardly lain rocks and boulders, and beaten paths to trek through. All the flora and fauna around you stand tall, nearly ten times your size, which creates the perfect escape we’ve come to love from Smalland. Some grass sway in the wind, though for the most part, much of the greenery remains stiff as a board. Still, Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR doesn’t disappoint, at least not completely.

Unfortunately, the praise you could muster for this game ends there, at the first glimpse of the world around you. Further on, you run into wild creatures. The story, for the parts that were beefy enough to bite into, suggests vile creatures have run amok thanks to a deadly outbreak. Ants set their minds on drawing blood when they see you, as well as bees and other hostile bugs, all of which are much bigger than you. You also run into friendly creatures you can tame, like grasshoppers, which have impressive enough detail to take a minute to appreciate. Beyond that, though, very little is at par with some of the best VR games out there. 

Sounds of Nature

The sense of immersion I imagine you’ll be looking for here is painfully lacking. The environment, despite how beautiful it looks, lacks the realism that makes you feel like you’re in a different world from your own. Perhaps it’s the lack of accompanying sounds you’d be looking for in a VR game. Like the sound of footsteps as you explore your surroundings, birds chirping in the air, the shimmering of water, the whistling or swooshing sound of wind or just something to plant you firmly into Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR’s world. Instead, all you hear is background music that changes into an upbeat track during combat, and that’s about it.

As Far As the Eye Can See

Anyway, you’ve just become acquainted with the world and are set to start exploring. For some reason, Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR feels smaller than it looks. Perhaps it’s the way everything around you is maxed out. And so, even while standing still, you can see pretty much everything within a mile. You can see the trees and roads as they wind down, and you can look up to see a floating air balloon hovering above you. When you take on quests, which are often in the form of “Go here and do this” or “Find this person so he can give you this,” it feels like even though you’re passing by lots of vegetation and nature, hardly much of it feels explorable.

I figure another reason is that the interactive element of Smalland: Survive the Wilds is lacking. From the quest givers, often characters standing stationary at a specific spot, to whom you must click on a conversational marker to interact, to the inefficient ways of collecting and crafting items, Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR barely is explorable. None of the characters have voice acting. So, you want to get used to reading through, sometimes, bulky text. They’re so sedentary, too, neither their eyes nor hands move as you interact with them. Meanwhile, you may spot a strawberry, for example, but fumble around it for a minute before you’re able to actually grasp it and toss it into your inventory. If I can sum up Smalland: Survive the Wild’s VR exploration in one sentence, it’d be that the world feels like a static place. 

Surviving at All Costs

There isn’t really much to say about the scavenging sections of the game, which is disappointing as the name of the game itself, “Survive the Wilds,” suggests a huge part of your gameplay will be spent surviving “the wilds.” On the contrary, Smalland: Survive the Wilds is a little too easy for a survival game. Well, it can be quite frustrating, but that’s because of the implementation. Take food, for example. So, you need to constantly pick up edible items, either from enemies or in the environment. You can eat in real time and store the excess in your inventory. 

However, the inventory is where things quickly take a turn for the worse, because to collect food and other items, you must pull up your inventory menu, then grab the item from the ground and drop it into your inventory. And you can’t move while the inventory menu is open. So, if you’re collecting items that are spread out, you’ll have to make do with opening and closing the menu a couple of times. It’d have been great to have a backpack. So, you simply toss items to your back and proceed. That way, immersion remains intact. Speaking of breaking immersion, a pop-up tells you when you’re hungry. Here’s a better idea. Why not implement your stomach grumbling? 

But First, Crafting

Unfortunately, the cumbersome nature of Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR doesn’t stop there. When crafting, you can use an axe and later tools like a pickaxe. For the axe, you can use it to chop down a mushroom or strawberry tree. However, you’ll probably randomly smack at the base before finding the specific spot that you need to hit to chop it down. And no, the tutorial doesn’t show you where to strike the tree. The mushroom doesn’t tumble down either, so you can chop it into pieces either way. It breaks down into bits lying all over the place. There’s something unnatural about how many of the features in Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR work. 

Brick by Brick

Like the building section of the game. In your home base, for example, you’ll find a pre-built house and be asked to build a door for it. You don’t know what the house is for, let alone tinker around with in-depth ways to build it to your personal style and satisfaction. Meanwhile, Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR is hardly intuitive. Remember the pickaxe? Its icon pops up randomly as you explore a mine. So, you look around for a pickaxe to grab it and get to work, but you cannot seem to find it or read ways to craft it until much later. 

There’s a lot of backtracking, whether it’s going back to your previous quest giver to see if there’s something you missed or walking around in the hopes of finding your way. Some quests feel incomplete, like the one where you’re told to go into the mine and see if a miner is okay. The miner is crouching down behind a massive boulder that, I imagine, may take a while before finally seeing them. He lay there looking massively in need of help, but upon clicking on the conversational marker, tells you he’s okay. You should leave him be and keep going on your journey. 

Verdict

True, most of the remarks I have about Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR are negative. If I were to nitpick, I’d probably have plenty of more cons to add, like the unnatural-looking hands of your character, that look too pale. Grabbing items is a chore. Combat, which I haven’t touched much on, is barebones. As long as you put your shield up, you’ll be good to go. Even the giant ants that I presume are the bosses are too easy to take down. 

Apparently, you’re supposed to be able to tame wild creatures, like grasshoppers, but the mechanic for it is brushed over too quickly. It, like most of the game, is hardly intuitive. You’ll find yourself giving up engaging in the features Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR offers, if not because they’re boring, then because they’re no fun. When compared to other far better survival VRs out there, Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR is severely lacking and needs a lot more baking time in the oven.