The Nintendo Switch port of 1–4-player survival game Oppidum is officially out, completing its list of platforms after it came to PC, PlayStation, and Xbox earlier this year.
Oppidum was created by Spanish indie developer EP Games with a team so small it only has one programmer, though you wouldn’t know it from the scope of the game. It has more than 40 hours of story content and a ton of features. It takes place on the once beautiful and magical island of Insule, but now corruption has spread across it and its creatures. And you're the hero who comes to break the curse that looms over the island.
You’ll establish a camp that’s your safe space, then explore the island’s woods, swamps, and caves to try to locate the source of the corruption. These areas are full of creatures you’ll need to deal with, some of which are still touched by the magic that imbues the island.
Combat is real-time and you’ll often face groups of enemies, so you need to pay attention to the skills of each to figure out which ones to take out first. For example, one enemy might charge you with its shield raised and seem like the most immediate threat. But it could be protecting a nearby healer, so you’ll need to avoid the aggressive attacker and take out the healer first.
Enemies will drop resources, and you can gather others by chopping down trees, taking a pickaxe to rocks, or opening treasure chests (some of which are locked until you clear the surrounding area of enemies). You’ll notice that after chopping down a tree, a glowing silhouette of it will remain. That means it will eventually regrow in that same spot, powered by the energy of the island. With the materials you gather, you can construct buildings, craft tools, upgrade your weapons, plant and tend crops, take care of animals, and cook meals.
As you venture across the island, you’ll meet and build relationships with its inhabitants. They’ll have new quests for you, and as you help them, they’ll help you in return. They’ll move the story forward and inform you about local customs and lore, deepening your connection to the world around you. And completing their quests can score you rewards like increased health and blueprints to improve your camp and equipment, so it’s worth helping everyone you find. As your gear improves, you’ll be able to tackle new areas, where you’ll find new residents to help, new mysteries to solve, and new information to uncover.
Completing objectives can also open up unexpected new possibilities. For example, when you defeat a boss, it’ll unlock its Altars, where you can make offerings to get new upgrades. That includes things like expanding your inventory, increasing your health, increasing how many of one item can be included in a stack, and more. This gameplay loop guarantees that through Oppidum’s 40+ hours of content, there’s always something new to discover and new goals to accomplish.
You can do all of this solo or with up to three other players at the same time. There’s cross-play between all platforms, with options for shared or private playthroughs. A shared game allows everyone to invite new people, nobody can be kicked out, all players can connect at any time (meaning you don’t need a particular person to be online in order to play), and if someone leaves the realm, their slot can’t be used by someone else. A private game is created by one person, and only they have the power to invite or kick out other players. It’s also only possible to join the game while the creator is online, but if someone leaves the realm or is kicked, they can be replaced by another player.
The experience can also be fully customized, including difficulty level and gameplay options. Difficulty can be altered with multiple different presets to tailor it to exactly what you’re looking for. If you just want stress-free gameplay where you gather resources and build up your camp without facing any real danger, you can turn on the Relaxed option, which makes it impossible for you to die. On the other end of the spectrum, if you’re looking for more of a challenge, you can activate Hardcore mode, which makes enemies much tougher and survival mechanics harsher.
If you want to get into more nitty gritty gameplay options, you can do that too. You can change things like enemies’ aggro range and how long an in-game day lasts. And there are accessibility options like disabling the need to hold buttons, adjusting durability settings for your tools and gear (which includes turning off the durability system altogether), simplifying fishing, and several more. The breadth of options earned Oppidum the Best Accessibility award at Spain’s Iris Games Awards, so needless to say it’s one of the game’s strongest features.
The Nintendo Switch launch of Oppidum also includes the recently released Patch 1.2.0, which added a bunch of new features and content. The headlining additions are two new minigames. Beach Pong is what it sounds like, and you can play against a friend or bennies, the island’s native creatures. In Battle Arena, you can earn rewards for fighting off waves of enemies. You can play in co-op with up to four players, or compete against each other in PvP.
The patch also added a new cue to let you know the right time to parry an enemy, a “snap to grid” option during building construction, a new pause feature, and lots more. For full specifics on the patch and everything it added, check out EP Games’ official website. For the latest news and updates, you can follow the game on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
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