Sharded World

If you enjoy survival games that focus on minimalism, then you might find that N-Hance Studio’s latest work, Sharded World, could be up your alleyway. Newly released, this is still in Early Access but already provides some really intriguing content and things to do. Despite being quite limited in what it can offer you at the moment, there is a beauty and charm to Sharded World that makes it quite addictive.

With an easy to follow gameplay loop and some interesting roguelite elements, Sharded World combines many of the attributes that makes modern survival titles work so well. You have a simple enough task: reclaim all of the separate parts of your soul, and defeat the evil Lich who has destroyed this beautiful world.

There is still much to be added to Sharded World, but already the content included feels highly promising.

An intriguing concept that probably needs more

While there is much to be enjoyed about Sharded World, this is a rather bare-bones title. The art and direction are simple enough to fall in love with, but not too detailed to cause performance issues. You can build and upgrade your character as time goes on, improving your equipment and adding more to your arsenal so that you can continue to build, develop, grow, and explore.

You visit different locales and need to achieve objectives major and minor. For example, a trip to the Wasteland biome will mean that you need to survive for around 20 minutes – easier said than done. You also need to take out the vampire in this biome, which is a tough fight. Take on the challenge, though, and see where you fall in the leaderboards. If you want to compare Sharded World to a particular game, then Vampire Survivors is its clearest and most obvious competitor. Combat is similarly easy, and you tend to need to survive hordes of enemies while you wait for the boss to appear. If you can defeat the boss, you can complete the level.

At the moment, though, the limited content means it would be hard to recommend this over Vampire Survivors. As more content is added, though, that could change; Sharded World definitely has potential.

The moment to moment gameplay is fine, but what about the RPG elements (7/10)

While the combat can be fun and engaging, there is simply not enough RPG elements to help Sharded World stand out from the other market competitors. The tutorial and some early quests are really the main ‘story’ and almost all of the dialogue comes from shopkeeper interactions, while world-building is simply a few descriptions for each of the biomes.

Pros

• Easy and addictive gameplay loop that is easy to play and rewarding if you can survive
• Simple but rewarding upgrade system that makes it easy to keep on progressing
• Story has some interesting ideas, but definitely needs to be fleshed out in future

Cons

• Lacks the unicity and the depth to help it stand out from other competitors on the market
• Not enough RPG elements at the moment to call this a true role playing game