Copyright shacknews
I love the great outdoors. Working in games media means it's easy to be cooped up all day, so I make a point of getting out and going for a walk somewhere, anywhere, once a day. Sometimes I explore a park, sometimes I walk through a city, sometimes I just walk as far as a shop next door and just get a cup of coffee, but I get out and enjoy the beautiful scenery Ireland has to offer. So you’d think that one among the countless survival games that see you get closer to nature than you’d probably ever want might click with me, but none ever have. Witchspire though, might finally be the survival game that gets its hooks into me. Not surviving. Thriving. By demphasizing the survival part of the open world survival genre, you’re kind of left with open world living. Which is quite nice when you're inhabiting a magical world where you collect the spirits of monsters to help you fight as familiars. There are definitely survival game elements; you’ll be cutting down trees to make a homestead, but Witchspire massively streamlines this stuff with the help of the magical backdrop. Instead of punching a tree 10 times until it falls over, you have a magic that allows you to toss ethereal axes at multiple trees to get the job done quicker. What’s more, if you do happen to accidentally partake in a little deforestation in the pursuit of gathering wood for your homestead, you can cast a spell you regrow more trees in an instant. On top of this the game’s bewitching set-up allows the team to play with genre conventions to make things like actually building your home easier. A common pain point I run into in survival games is that I see all the cool creations high-level players make, their elaborate bases and forts, but actually making anything akin to that myself can be finicky in first or third person. Witchspire allows you to take a more aerial view and astral project your soul while you build, so you get a much better and more holistic view of your building. Pushing back Envar Games explained that it is taking this approach, where the world feels less hostile starting out, because the team wanted to create a “streamlined survival game”. This can best be seen when you load into the open world, and you’ll notice you have no energy, hunger, or thirst meters to manage. However, while Envar wants the opening hours to be a bit more forgiving, it seems to be in the name of making it easier to get to the good stuff, that has given games like The Long Dark such long legs with active communities. For some, that might mean being able to more quickly go from building a ramshackled hut to instead being able to sculpt grand homesteads, and for others, that might mean being able to get to the more complex combat without hours of tying rocks to sticks so you can hammer away at a wolf for 30 minutes. Envar says that as you push out into the world, “The world will start to push back.” This became acutely evident when the devs demo-ing us the game teleported to a higher level area and the player’s familiar quickly found themself doing hardly any damage to surrounding fauna. These familiars are another thing that helped Witchspire stand out to me as someone who’s pretty cynical towards the genre, as this is where the combat gains much of its complexity. Fun with familiar friends Instead of just you (and any other players in your party) going out scavenging, you will instead quickly tame an animal companion in Witchspire. After you defeat any of the wildlife in the game, they don’t die, but their spirits leave their body to begin the journey of reincarnation somewhere else in the world. Sometimes, their spirit will linger, and in those moments, you can capture/tame/recruit (whatever sounds the least harsh to you) a magical monster to fight alongside you. These familiars will have skills and rarities not unlike Pokemon. In fact, a lot of this system seems to be very similar to Pokemon’s recent Legends games. Not only are the collecting and leveling aspects there, but battles play out in real time with your familiar fighting for you as you occasionally give it commands. The difference is that on top of your familiar fighting, you can also cast offensive spells to battle back. This is where the loop of Witchspire comes into focus. While the survival aspects might be stripped back, they have been supplemented with an RPG monster-catching structure to keep you playing. On top of the monster-taming-inspired RPG, you will also be leveling your own character, who will have access to their own skill tree. Some of this stuff will be combat-focused, obviously, but this is also where you will further alleviate some of the pain points associated with survival gameplay. Be it getting more items for the natural resources you collect or new skills, like the magical axes that will cut down multiple trees for you. All of this is in the name of getting to the most central island on the map and climbing the Witchspire. This will only be doable with the help of a witch’s typical form of transportation, a flying broom. Learning as you go While Witchspire is still a ways out from 1.0, the team will be launching the game into early access in 2026. While the members we spoke to seem confident in the game's current identity, it did feel like this time would be used to hone in on the balance between traditional survival gameplay and monster taming. I doubt Envar will be adding in a hunger meter anytime soon, but they seemed open to the idea that, depending on feedback and player telemetry, they might readjust the degree to which the world pushes back early on. As it stands, Witchspire looks to be one of the rare survival games I’ll be keeping a close eye on, largely thanks to its willingness to explore other genres and push back against genre conventions. That said, it does remain to be seen if folks who would be jumping into the early access of an “open world survival crafting game” (as the Steam page lists it) will agree with me on this one. This preview is based on a PC demo viewed over Discord. The final product is subject to change.
