Coming from developer 1M Bits Horde and publisher META Publishing, Nested Lands is a ruthless medieval RPG featuring village-building and survival elements. You can check it out for yourself via the new demo, available on Steam, GOG and Epic Games Store.
The events of the game take place in a dark, unrelenting world ravaged by plague. As it usually happens, such circumstances bring out the worst in the people, with the countryside roamed by bandits and twisted madmen that don’t need any reason at all to pillage and murder.
Driven apart by the plague and mistrust, the humans of these lands barely manage to survive on their own – and that’s where you come in. As a wounded survivor of a ship crash, you manage to recover and get your bearings thanks to the aid of a helpful local. So what better way to repay the favor than to build your own village, taking care of your people and letting them shoulder some of your burdens as well?
After all, this is the only way not only to survive, but to live in the Nested Lands.
Upon starting a new game, you get to create your own character, customize their appearance, and select the difficulty and the way you are going to be rolling: single-player or co-op. While the game does offer a choice between a male or a female character, only the male option was present during the playtest.
You can also choose to hide or to display nudity, and, in the latter case, get access to Nested Lands’ newest and most crucial feature: a genital slider. Now that the top priority is out of the way and a short tutorial is behind you, you can start addressing your basic needs and building your own dynasty.
The protagonist in Nested Lands has a few survival elements to watch out for: there’s energy that can be replenished by sleeping in your tent; thirst that can you can quell by drinking from a lake, a well, or by eating berries; hunger that can be sated with food (with cooked food providing more than a handful of random berries); hygiene (incredibly important during a plague); and cold. The latter can be made less of a big deal by acquiring better clothes, but you’re still better off spending the nights relatively close to a fire.
Needless to say, as you move further away from the safety of your own village, you are more and more likely to run into bandits who will attack on sight. Until you get some basic weapons, you are better off being stealthy and looting everything you can get your hands on without being seen.
It is likely that the later points of the game will introduce something related to mental health as the devs make a point of bringing up the way constantly fighting for your life against the bandits and dealing with Blood Plague affects the character. There are also religious buildings to construct way further down the list which might be related to it.
Realistically, hunger remains the most dangerous need, especially in the beginning: the sources of food are limited and the satiety they provide is barely enough to go on, let alone when you start inviting people to join you.
The game will be tightly holding your hand during the initial progression, having a very specific order of buildings and actions that you need to follow in its mind. Having made your fire and tent, you will start working on the village: the village center and the first villager’s house are your top priority, followed by a well, a wash building, little garden, animal traps and more.
For quicker progression, you might want to tackle these quests ASAP instead of exploring your surroundings in depth.
You can get your first villager almost right away from the Old Market location, getting the first NPC to boss around and to hear their complaints about food, cold and hygiene in return. At this point, there isn’t much to do in the village besides gathering plant and reed fiber, and berries.
As you unlock more buildings and options, you can tell your new underling to change the building they are assigned to, and thus the responsibilities that they have. However, not all of them are performed with the same level of attention and mastery, farming being particularly useless in the demo as the NPC refused to scare crows, didn’t water the plants and didn’t harvest the yield.
The general upkeep of the village and resource gathering was working as intended – although I wish there was a way to see which resources were available in the village chest at a glance from the crafting/building menus.
Note that NPCs also have their own strong sides, like the peasant I recruited had immediately pointed out that he’s good at weaving clothes, so it’s best to utilize these when and if you can.
A new addition compared to the alpha are the little quests posted by the villagers on the bulletin board, including such things as producing certain tools like pickaxes, killing bandits, and eradicating sources of the plague. Some can be completed right away for a small reward, some require you to spend time and resources before you can approach them, all give small rewards and give a sense of direction on where to move next.
As such things go in Survivals, over time you swap your basic stone pickaxes and axes for better ones, get clothes that help you withstand the cold, work out a way to reliably produce food… what then?
While this was not present in the demo, the helpful NPC you meet in the beginning has implied that a bustling, growing community comes with its own dangers: the increased change of plague and drawing the attention of the aforementioned bandits and madmen.
As long as you are just a handful of people living in huts in the forest, there’s no real point in trying to find and kill you – but once you actually have possessions that are worth a little effort? At that point you better start crafting weapons, building barricades and assigning guards. Your supposed wealth will come with scrutiny and the subsequent attacks.
You should also pay extra attention to hygiene and the sources of corruption scattered around the map, marked with ominous music, red vapors and other unpleasant signs. A trusty bow and fire will help you get rid of these dangers to your community.
You might want to reconsider expanding too rapidly if you are unprepared to fight for your settlement.
Since the alpha I tried out last year, Nested Lands had improved graphics and animations, locked in on the design direction, introduced new mechanics and buildings, and improved AI behavior – bandits now patrol their camps, behave more naturally, give chase and actively swarm you.
Of course, there are still ways to go: the game still has some very generic worldbuilding and lore that does not set it apart from other games of the genre; the character creator and customization are basic, and the same can be said about the survival elements. There is no real hostile wildlife to watch out for, like the wolves or bears, limiting the dangerous elements that you meet.
But that is what the demo, Early Access and giving your feedback is for. Check it out for yourself on Steam, and let the devs know what you think!
The game had been in development since mid-2023. Early Access is the next logical step to incorporate both the team’s vision and players’ feedback to create the final version of Nested lands. At the moment, the devs propritize the compelling narrative and excellent condition, and expect that the EA period may last over 6 months.
“While the playable portion of the story may be limited during this phase, the final version of the game is planned to seamlessly integrate the complete storyline and full gameplay mechanics that we have planned so far. The story updates we plan should also introduce fresh biomes, creatures, resources, and other exciting features to enrich the game’s overall experience. Moreover, the game plans to get 1 additional island and plans to uncover the story around this island that is needed to complete the overall story. Several new Major NPC characters are also a part of the Early Access stage plans.”
