Craftopia

Craftopia (2020) is an open-world creature collecting adventure from the creators of Palworld. You build an automated base of operations, collect creatures, explore islands and dungeons, and even fight fantastical monsters with swords and magical abilities. It's this eclectic mix of different play styles and the gleeful freedom to combine them in whatever way you can think of that makes it stand out.

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You start on a singular island and work to build a life for yourself and advance your technology and abilities. How you do this is totally up to you. You can create a farm and harvest crops, collect creatures in monster prisons and make them work for you in large-scale industrial structures, or hone your combat skills by fighting monsters in Zelda-style dungeons using weapons and magical spells.

As you play, you advance through different Ages of infrastructure, granting you access to ever-more complex and intricate systems, letting you travel to new islands, and create vehicles, and automated machines to produce essential materials and goods. You also unlock new skills and abilities which expand your combat options letting you defeat stronger foes and triumph over ever-greater challenges.

The result is a wacky, mashup of different genres, ideas, and mechanics that, rather than feeling disjointed or confusing, create an eccentric and unusual space for creative ideas and experimentation. It's like Minecraft-meets-Breath of the Wild-meets-Pokémon with all the usual conventions thrown out the window in favour of greater player freedom and expression.

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Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Craftopia 8 weeks ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 8 weeks ago.