Craftopia

I don't understand why steam lets the games to be early access for 6 years.
There should be a period of time where you can have the game as an early access not 100000000 years, in other words, take the money and leave the thing unfinished so that the gamers can suffer

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.

Craftopia walked so Palworld can run.
I also had fun memories left here so it's a thumbs up for me. It's the small things that mattered.

This game is really, REALLY fun, BUT, it has 2 major issues.
I will start this review by briefly stating that the only reason I played this game again is because I already had gotten all of its achievements on Xbox when it was available on game pass in like early 2022, it wasn't that hard to 100% back then, how hard could it be to 100% now? it was freaking HARD, it was not only a completely different game than what I remembered (thanks to seamless mode) but it was way more challenging combat wise this time around.
As for the positives of this game? it's a lovely game to get lost in, there's a HUGE map begging for you to jump in and explore it, pair that with beautiful music and as soon as those first piano notes hit you it already starts to feels like a grand adventure before you even leave the first area/village. During your exploration you'll come across plenty of caves to loot, secrets to be discovered and resources to be gathered that will gradually make you stronger, allowing you to take on even stronger enemies and clear some dungeon puzzles while you're at it. Talking strictly about combat? There's potential for a variety of combat builds to be made, quite a lot of room for experimentation based on the types of weapon and enchantments this game offers, not to mention the amount of skills you can unlock, I am confident you'll find a built that perfectly suits you.
This game has it all; from resource automation, to literal monster petting/collecting. It's extremely easy to sink a bunch of hours on any of its 4 main aspects: Automation, Building, Exploration, & Combat, I only engaged with the later 2 the most, as automation and building are not quite my cup of tea, but the engagement I had with those 2 was phenomenal.
The 2 major issues I briefly mentioned at the beginning are quite literally a deal breaker if you can't get past them, so here they are:
#1: Optimization.
Yup, this game runs BAD, this is the first major issue and it will hit you in the face right away, not even with an upper-mid-range rig like mine's that's specifically tailored for 1440p on modern AAA games, not even then was I able to keep a stable 60fps with a decent render resolution, render distance or shadows activated, as soon as you try to aim for medium settings the game drops to low 40s and to be honest I preferred to just straight up run everything on low to keep it locked to 60fps (Not always, as it still continued to drop by the end game, I accumulated a bunch of resources and needed to pile up chests to store then, lol) THANK GOD I decided to come back in late 2025 because when seamless dropped in mid 2023 this game used to run on low 20s! can you believe that? It did improve, but it's nowhere near where it should be.
But yeah it runs bad and DON'T get me started on the crashes, sometimes I couldn't even play for 5mins straight without having it crash on me, time and time and time and time again, if you play this game make sure to disable auto save and keep saving yourself manually every so often, because the auto save feature defaults to "once ever 30mins" and trust me it will crash by then, and then it'll crash again as soon as you open the game for good measure, losing progress on this game does not feel good at all, and no, this is not something you can control or predict this game has no trigger, it literally just crashes out of nowhere, without even nothing crazy happening on the screen, sometimes you'd be putting points into a new skill you want to try out and then BOOM it crashes, so be on the ready!
#2: Palworld...? Palworld.
This is the same developer that launched Palworld way back in 2024 and WOW, wouldn't you figure? they would definitely want to support the top #3 all time steam charts game rather than their failed 2020 attempt, right? RIGHT?
Of course they will rather support their biggest game yet, so yeah, it's literally abandoned as Palworld goes into its 1.0 update, Craftopia continues to receive no real updates for several months, and the only reason it has not been kicked out of early access by Steam at this point it's because Pocketpair drops a patch every once in a while to fix some really dumb a$$ bugs or glitches like "a flower being darker in color than intended", what the hell is even that? so yeah, don't expect any meaningful updates in the future, what you see now is what you get.
So yeah, choose wisely! and oh... get it on S A L E :').

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.

I find it really disappointing that a bunch of people have been bombarding the reviews with negatives because of pocketpair's decision to focus on their HUGE (emphasis on the word "HUGE" because I can't possibly explain how much bigger palworld is, it goes beyond what an indie company could possibly hope to achieve) release palworld.
1. whether you believe palworld is the superior game or not is irrelevant, and while its true they've pretty much completely abandoned this game, this was still fun to play back then (it hasn't changed much since I played) and it would still be now.
2. what you see is what you get, as long as you understand that, if it's worth your money I would tell you to go ahead and buy it even in it's unfinished state
On a personal note, I think pocketpairs decision to focus on palworld was the correct choice. Maybe I'm biased, maybe not who cares, I'm just a guy who likes having fun that thinks it's funny how so many negative reviews mention how they've had fun or "got their money's worth" but would deter others from the same experience. It's still the same experience but at the end of the day, you're better of just buying palworld unless you're seeking this experience particularly. Thank you craftopia for what you've done.

- 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.)