Craftopia

Highly Recommended
I have put a serious amount of time into Craftopia — through boss fights, tower repairs, age progression, farming empires, dungeon crawling, enchanting builds, and even vehicle chaos — and I can confidently say this game is far deeper than most people realize.
First, let’s address the noise.
You’ll see reviews claiming the game is “abandoned” or “never going to be finished.” Ignore them.
The developers are constantly patching, fixing bugs, and releasing updates. The update history speaks for itself. Are there bugs? Yes. Absolutely. But they are actively being worked on, and content continues to expand.
Now let’s talk about what actually matters: the systems.
Craftopia is deceptively deep.
You have:
• Multiple Age Progression systems that unlock entire tiers of technology
• Tower restoration that changes how you explore the world
• Boss Rush dungeons and open-world bosses
• Resource automation and farming systems
• Vehicle crafting (yes, including a cow-shaped motorcycle)
• Base building with scaling automation
But that’s just surface level.
The Picture Book system alone adds insane long-term depth. Craft a certain number of items and your stats permanently increase. That means everything you make contributes to progression. It rewards crafting diversity and long-term play in a way most games don’t even attempt.
Then there’s gear progression.
• Tool refining
• Weapon refinement
• Armor upgrading
• Deep enchant extraction and transfer systems
• Rare boss drops
• Build optimization
You can reskill and specialize however you want.
Want to play one-handed swords?
Heavy two-handed weapons?
Full bow/ranged build?
Guns?
Magic staff user?
The skill tree supports it. And respeccing allows experimentation.
Combat feels responsive and rewarding. Boss fights range from manageable to brutal, especially in the later biomes. And capturing bosses adds another layer entirely.
Replayability is huge.
You can:
• Focus on farming and automation
• Speedrun Age progression
• Create optimized combat builds
• Grind Picture Book stats
• Boss hunt
• Dungeon clear
• Play solo or co-op
Every time I return after a break, I find something new to optimize or improve.
Is it perfect? No.
Is it shallow? Absolutely not.
Craftopia is ambitious, layered, chaotic in the best sandbox way, and constantly improving.
If you enjoy deep progression systems, build experimentation, and games that reward long-term investment, Craftopia is absolutely worth your time.

I didn’t want to like this game.

I played and loved Palworld, and when a friend sent me this, I turned it on for 40 minutes before shutting it off—smug in the belief that Palworld was the better version of the formula.

Then something happened: I turned it back on. Without my preconceived notions, I tried it again, and it was wonderful. There is no hand-holding, no instructions, and no “right” way to play. You start in the Stone Age and figure it out in your own way, in your own time. You progress through 10 ages of advancing technology, build your character however you want, and set your own goals.

In the beginning, I treated this like a standard RPG—questing and leveling without giving much thought to the thousands of craftable items. Then I tried a simple automation. Then another. Now, I am creating vast Rube Goldberg-like creations moving livestock and goods across the map, thinking up ways to increase efficiency for no other reason than the joy of seeing it all work.

As an Early Access game, it needs polish; for example, it’s easy to “lose” where a specific structure can be crafted. But overall, this game is an exercise in freedom rarely seen today. Even its more famous sibling title could learn a thing or two from Craftopia.

I didn’t want to like this game. I ended up loving it.

First things first: this game is NOT abandoned. Scroll up to the top of the store page and look in the top right corner. As of writing this it says: "SUMMER UPDATE 2025". So anyone who is saying that and not reading the news is blind.
Second: "This Game has been early access for 5 years!". Yes and no.
I've been playing this game since November 2024; from what I could gather, the original game that's called "Legacy" was worked on until the "Seamless update" which is now being worked on since about a year ago. This was put to a vote to the player base and they wanted seamless; so EA was extended. The legacy version is no longer being worked on. So EA has only been for about a year (June 2024, I believe) atm and this game's world is being remade from the ground up and new items are being introduced.
So essentially apart from the assets, the devs had to start over.
Now then:
I have only played this in single player on survival difficulty and not in Co op; which I heard is bit unstable. I also have not played on the newly released flat empty island either.
This game has optimisation issues and that other people have reported this too. It's still needs to be worked on in this aspect. I have an old a** CPU, but for the life of me I can't get this game to run more than 45 FPS even with all the graphics turned down. There are various things like enchanting that the game did not explain well and I really wished I knew earlier on in my playthrough.
The game on survival difficulty might be a bit too easy. If you're looking for a bit more of challenge then play it on a higher difficulty which can be changed and customized mid playthrough.
One thing that that this game lacks is landscaping like you can do Valheim. But I don't think the devs can do it fundamentally on the way the game is designed. Shame.
But I do find this game fun and I can see a great co op game here and the fact you can potentially play as any character ever using the native Vroid support only adds to the fun. Want to play as Megumin from Konasuba or Senator Armstrong from MGR? You can. There are QoL additions and features here that really make this game's experience more enjoyable. I find the combat fun but it might be a bit too casual for some except for maybe using the katana which I main and it's a pretty technical weapon in this game.
I can't wait for this game to come out of EA which I believe is soon. All I can say is watch this space.
If you're still ambivalent on buying this game, then maybe get it in a bundle with Palworld while it's on sale like I did.

- You can use any character you make via VRoid studio, which is free, great for character customization!
- Game supports up to 64 players, with a dedicated server tool for even more.
- Open world, large map with multiple biomes, many items to get, bosses to fight, etc.
- Diverse gameplay. You can be a humble farmer, you can build your house and go fishing, or you can be a boss grinder on hell difficulty, where enemies have 1800% health and do 500% damage to you.
- For the amount of content, this game is at a great price. I assume the only reason its not $70 or $80 like all the AAA games is just because its early access and there aren't that many players, because it definitely should be $70 or $80, its much better than Mariokart World...
- Devs still update and improve on the game to this day. Most recent update as of writing this was 3 days ago.
- Mod support is fully integrated through Steam Workshop, and mods work at your world, friend's worlds, servers, etc. No issues with syncing, even if others didn't install the mod, it can still modify your game. (But things like the Skip Night mod require the owner of the world to download, but that is a special circumstance. Most mods like extra storage, console commands, unlimited items, etc. work just fine anywhere.
- Game works flawlessly on linux, and actually, runs at higher FPS than on Windows. The Default Compatability tool is more than enough to have a perfectly flawless and smooth game experience.
- Has options to join game via IP or game code, and makes it easy to join people on other devices. Cross-compatability is great.
- Game is early access, so expect some bugs, but devs do patch them out.
- Translation to English isn't complete, there are some text that still appears in Japanese or have a broken translation that doesn't make sense, but usually, nothing which would greatly hinder your ability to understand things in the game.
- While multiplayer works, it sometimes has issues connecting, but when it fails to connect, a message says to restart my pc to fix it, which usually works.
- Dedicated server tool is great, but often times, the dedicated server console is constantly spitting out info. Could be errors, logs, idk. But it's mostly fine, since the server runs just like a normal world.
- Turning a world into a dedicated server is a bit strange, but i found out that in settings.ini, you set the world name to what you named the world. It's a bit of a hassle, but you can get your worlds turned into servers.
- Game has somewhat poor optimization, especially on Windows. I use a RTX 4070, with a Ryzen 9 9900x, and have 64GB RAM. On linux, I don't really notice any major lag and it stays above 60fps, but on Windows, the game goes down to 40-50fps. This is with every setting on its highest value. Lower settings will drastically improve fps, and don't look too different.
- While the game has a community, it is somewhat small. Not many people make mods, guides, or answer discussions. I'd say there are probably like 25-50 people who have made mods on the workshop, however, the people who made mods usually make multiple mods.
- VRoid support is great, and I would like to see it in more games, but it disconnects from VRoid about once a week on Windows, and often once every few days on linux.
- Default character creation without VRoid is kinda restrictive and doesn't have much customization, and if you don't connect to VRoid, you cannot see anyone's character if they used VRoid. If someone uses a VRoid character, everyone needs to connect a VRoid account to see it. In addition to this, your character is mute and doesn't really have facial expressions, which fortunately, can be fixed with a few mods. Mimetic muscles handles facial expressions.
- Some aspects feel cheap or copied, mainly enemies, which look exactly like bokoblins, moblins, wizzarobes, and lynels from Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom. There is also a item which captures monsters in a very similar way to pokemon. Despite this, the story of the game, and map layout is unique.
- There isn't much info on this game online, but there is a wiki for it. However, finding walkthroughs, tutorials, etc, on this game is usually either not there, or the info is outdated.
This game is a bit complex at first, but its easy to get the hang of it. Make sure you READ EVERYTHING. The tutorial is very important. In your inventory, you can press H to view hotkeys, you can also do that in settings. Some hotkeys are rather useful. Farming is OP. You can make absurd amounts of money and level up fast by farming and selling crops/exchaning them for exp pots. Combat is easy to master. All you need to do is press C on your keyboard(B on Xbox Controller and O on PlayStation Controller and A on Nintendo Switch controller(do people even use those on Steam lol)) right as you are attacked, you will dodge and enter slow motion, and by attacking, you can deal massive damage to their shield gauge, which helps taking down enemies and bosses quickly.
I recommend you select whatever game difficulty you want, and adjust it however you want at any time. there is no reward or penalty for what difficulty you pick, and it is purely just for if you want a challenge, or a breather.
I think this game is worth it if you enjoy RPGs, like open world games like Breath of the Wild, enjoy building, like detailed character customization, or want to play with friends. I would recommend this game if you want to have fun, enjoy a cozy game, and play however you want. The game is really diverse, from farming, fishing, base building, completing quests, exploring, or grinding out quests. The choice is yours. Just don't expect this game to be like a AAA game. After all, it's still in early access. But, the devs still work on this game and improve it often.
I really enjoy playing it more than some of my other games. However, the story, while unique, isn't really fleshed out. I've only encountered 3 cutscenes. The one where you start the game, fight your first boss, and beat the game. But, even though there is a lack of guidance or direction in the story, you can complete every area, and beat every region's boss, and eventually make it to the credits screen and get an achievement.
Most of the issues I've had with this game are minor inconveniences, and don't really hinder my enjoyment of the game. Personally, I greatly recommend this game. Difficulty is crazy scalable. You can go from practically killing things in one hit to making chickens take as long as a boss fight to kill, adjust death penalties, and there is even creative mode if you just wanna chill. PVP isn't implemented yet, but there is somewhat of a friendly-fire mechanic, but only when using fire. I think that this is definitely a good game, and just needs a little refining, and additions of more mechanics, and it can probably become one of the new trending Steam games on full release, just like their other game, Palworld.
And if you actually read the whole thing, you are free to go, but if you just scrolled to the bottom, then you have to Like and Award this review. Sorry, I don't make the rules, I just follow them.
I'd rate this game 9/10
(i got another 50 hours since updating this review. It is now 1/11/2026. Happy new year.)

I am someone who has been following Craftopia Early Access since pretty much it came out, and I have to say, the point they reached in 5 years is not amazing. The game is still not optimized, has a lot of bugs etc. like any alpha game.
But trust me that there is a good reason for all of this.
Before the game's current version, the map was split into 100 island maps that were very similar to each other, but were getting progressively harder as you moved on and explored further. They completely nuked this game and started anew with the scraps. IMO, this was the right move as the previous versions were super repetitive and uninteresting. But this also means that they had to start from scratch and had to piss off some of the players who expected more from a game that was 4 years into the early access (back when they changed everything, and they did piss off so many people).
But what they got right and what makes you play this game is definitely the good amount of variation of builds in the game, with each weapon and build having their own animations and play styles. The vehicles in my opinion are garbage and are way too buggy to use, but they are fun when they work. The dungeons are not bad but can be repetitive after a while (kind of like in Palworld). The new open world is super cool with nice treasure hunting, fun bosses to kill, puzzles to solve etc. Yes it is a clone of Breath of the Wild but that was the original selling point of this game anyways.
There is so much more to talk about this game that you can see from other reviews, and I know that people are saying "because Palworld came, the devs have ignored this game, its abondonware" etc. but this is factually not true as this game is still receiving monthly updates with new content and bug fixes. This game was always made by like 5-6 people and it still is being made that way, and the game's scale is enormous. It is one of the games you need patience with.
If you want to support the devs you can get it at its asking price which isnt a lot (25 usd) or better in a sale. If you don't care, then simply play Palworld as that game has much more content and is better polished. Just remember that this game's scope is bigger than Palworld's and it has a unique taste to it that Palworld does not give you.

I love the game. It focuses on character instead of collecting pals. Would love to see this game and palworld merged.

It is a great game. It is the predecessor for Palworld, but I feel there is much more content in Craftopia. You don't need to rely on pals to craft and play the game, thus providing the player with freedom to explore the world, and develop its skills and upgrade gear, which for me, is the part I most focus my efforts on.
Other than Palworld, there is an obvious element of Genshin Impact/BOTW in the art style and gameplay, which I interpret as a good thing. The world is massive, exploration is rewarding and definitely gets better along the way to the end game. For once, I've tamed the griffon boss, allowing me to fly across the map. But there's plenty of teleport points, so no matter what your game stage is, you will never feel limited in that regard.
Enchanting is a thing, and is pretty much required to progress through your gear. Feels like grinding artifacts in GI, with the domains and everything, minus the energy system. It gets grindy, because you need to obtain multiple copies of said enchant to apply to your gear, which for me, is a positive and I enjoy it. May or may not be your thing.
Crafting gets crazy fast. You can automate everything, and if you care about efficiency as much as I do, be prepared to waste hours on that.
There is Vroid support, which is huge. You will never need to waste a dime on cosmetics, something that is rare to hear about in today game industy.
About the 5 years in EA, I get it. But is a great game nonetheless, I'm 38 hours in, and I still haven't scratched the surface really. I feel like its there is a good mix of crafting/survival/gear progression in this game that appealed to me more than any other game in its genre. I would recommend trying for sure and maybe wait for a sale if you're no sure, but keep in mind the game is not abandoned as other may say and Pocketpair is still pushing updates and bug fixes.