When seeing the trailer for Farworld Pioneers, I was immediately sucked in. The snappy visuals and the pumping soundtrack had me excited for a high-action, two-dimensional, pixel-art shooter, with base-building elements.

Unfortunately, the trailer is a red herring. Developer Igloosoft and publisher tinyBuild have instead delivered a game that is survival management. That is not to say you can’t experience what the trailer depicts, it is just not what you’re going to get without a significant input of time. Disappointed, I had to stop playing the game to refresh my outlook and start anew. So, read on for my review of Farworld Pioneers, the survival management game.

The story is very limited as most survival management games are from my experience. Personally, I think this is a missed opportunity for the genre. Just because you want to allow the player to make their own way through your game, doesn’t mean you should neglect a narrative. Write an interesting story then allow the player to choose if they want to interact with it or not. Anyway, I digress.

You are a scientist that has crash-landed on a planet and you must find a way to leave. Beyond that, you are left to build your own narrative. You do begin the game with a companion called Buddy, and Buddy will give you objectives to complete that will give you guidance on what to do next, but as already stated, you can follow his advice or strike out on your own. The choice is yours.

Farworld Pioneers comes with two modes of play which can be toggled on and off as you, please. The Peaceful mode will prevent raiders from randomly spawning and attacking your colony, whereas, to be expected, turning off peaceful mode opens you up to random attacks running the risk of resource, construction, and colonist loss. When beginning the game, it starts you off with a very basic tutorial.

After the standard character movement, it then introduces you to the colonist system, and as your base expands you will be able to recruit other survivors to add to your colony. The colonists can assist you with all your tasks from gathering resources, constructing items, battling, mining, and farming. Basically, the colonists can perform the same tasks as you, and they add much-needed assistance to reaching your final goal of departing the planet.

Unfortunately, the AI of the colonists is subpar, requiring almost constant supervision and direction. After the colonist section of the tutorial, it will move on to the construction system. All the various menus in this section are shown to you and tasks are given to arm you with the basics, and once you’ve completed these, the tutorial is complete. The rest is up to you, or you can follow the objectives given to you by Buddy. With all the navigation required on the menus, it feels overly complicated. Having to recall all the steps to start a task or construct an item, I found myself getting frustrated. The frustration was compounded further when these tasks could have been simplified by executing them with a button press.

Farworld Pioneers not only offers a single-player experience but PvP and Co-Op as well. These options add more, as being able to compete and play with friends is great. Though this is a great feature, personally, I am not impressed. I could get the same enjoyment with a rival or a friend in my backyard and a green ant’s nest.

The 2D pixel art is pretty to look at and is very serviceable. Missing the snappiness seen in the trailer, there is nothing visually out of place or extravagant. Though this is neither praise nor criticism, there’s no dynamic punch unless you really work for it. Farworld Pioneers really misses out on a chance to make any sort of visual impact.

The sound and music are pleasant, and, like the visuals, are completely serviceable for the offering. Just like the trailer, the pumping soundtrack is not at the forefront. With no extravagance, the sound and music match the motif of what is to be expected in the survival management theme, and with no punch here either, Farworld Pioneers misses out on making an auditory impact as well.

For those achievement hunters out there, Farworld Pioneers offers ten achievements that are easy to accomplish in about six hours. Some require you to play with peaceful mode turned off, but after being awarded the achievement you can turn back on peaceful mode.

Being so unimpactful in the story, gameplay, visuals, and audio, Farworld Pioneers is ultimately very average. Nothing in this game says that this is a “must play.” If you enjoy survival management games, then Farworld Pioneers will give you exactly what you’re looking for. No more. No less. For those with Xbox Game Pass and a desire to play it, sure, download it and see if it’s for you. Otherwise, the $22.45AU price tag doesn’t seem worth it.

Written by: Ashley Barnett-Cosgrove