It’s October, and I would like to mark the spooky month as more of a survival builder month. Yes, the new Call of Duty is on the way, and other titles have been jammed thanks to the monster that is Grand Theft Auto 6, but there’s a handful of new survival building open-world games now fully out, and one of them is RuneScape: Dragonwilds, a game that I’m struggling to fully get into compared to how I felt when playing the 1.0 version of Palworld. It’s a fun game, but it’s a slow burn in the first 10 hours, especially when you are playing alone and on the highest possible difficulty. Some thoughts.
Dragonwilds, Alone, and Fighting for My Life
My first playthrough and the struggles I’m facing are self-inflicted, as this game’s Hard mode makes enemies swarming you a clear threat to your survival. As I was learning the ropes, I was targeted by raiding Goblin parties and a dragon that shoots poisonous flames towards my direction if I’m out in the open and visible. It’s weirdly satisfying to have this much pressure as I build my little home near the game’s starting point.
It’s a fun tough game, but it has its cons, as long journeys that result in a death can be discouraging when you have to travel back to where you died to retrieve your gear. An expected outcome when you die in games like this, but it feels more painful considering there aren’t fast travel points everywhere like Palworld and other games like it, at least in the starting area. This adds a bit more pressure when pushing into the unknown.
Dragonwilds has the same bells and whistles you’d expect from a good survival game. Building so far is easy to control and manage with a controller and mouse, plus they have features that make it easier to manage all the items you gather in your journeys.
As the difficulty stares at me each time I dare to do something new, I see my character slowly growing with each activity I do. If I chop down trees for wood, I level up my woodworking, which eventually gives me unique spells and perks for reaching certain levels. The same goes for mining, fishing, melee fighting, and even sprinting. Just being active and doing anything pushes you forward to a level up, which is how it should be as that’s what RuneScape is known for.
The original game has people grinding specific specialties like farming and such, making their character one of its many specialties. In a way, RuneScape is the same way, as you can focus on one over the other, but with me as a solo player, I’m forced to do almost everything, pushing me to simply be the jack of all trades.
