Wild n Chill makes surviving in the wilderness surprisingly relaxing

I’ve grown a newfound love for survival games lately, but not the kind that throw you into a zombie-infested world and force you to live with existential dread. I love survival games that offer a slower, more relaxed experience, and Wild n Chill might be one of the best examples of what I mean. 

Wild n Chill by Wombat Brawler throws you into the wilderness with nothing but a backpack and the bestest of canine buddies. You travel through a pixel art side-scrolling forest, learning bushcraft along the way, and generally having a lovely time as long as you can avoid thinking about the bears. 

Learning on the fly

In Wild n Chill, at least in the demo build, there are no tutorials or hints as to what you’re supposed to be doing. You simply appear in the middle of the forest with a dog at your side and… start walking. You pick up rocks and sticks as you go, slowly discovering new crafting recipes that will help you survive in the wilderness. 

Food comes in the form of mushrooms, while logs and stone provide the materials you need for warmth. Staying close to the fire in the dark of night is vital to avoid catching hypothermia, and finding fresh water is important but relatively simple, thanks to the presence of streams filled with ice-cold mountain runoff. 

Once you figure out how to make a makeshift hatchet, you can start chopping down small trees and using their logs to create temporary bushcraft shelters. You can rest inside to replenish your stamina and reduce general tiredness. These are all the most basic of survival mechanics, but Wild n Chill feels different thanks to the art. 

Intensive crafting

I don’t mean intensive in terms of what you have to do to craft something; as long as you have the required resources, crafting anything is as simple as pressing the “craft” button. No mini-games or timed events involved. However, there are certain crafted items that are incredibly useful and yet require a ton of resources, which means you have to be very careful about how you use your items. 

One of these items is arrows. You eventually learn the crafting recipe for a bow and arrow, which is every bit as useful as it sounds. However, you need to craft each arrow individually using Alder Sticks, Grouse Feathers, and Nettle Cord. Nettle Cord is a secondary item that can be made after you’ve found nettles for the first time, so that’s not too bad. It’s the Grouse Feathers that are more problematic. 

During my time with the demo, I only ever saw a single grouse corpse, which I found lying by the side of the river. It was while interacting with the corpse that I discovered the recipe for arrows, and I immediately made one, tried to shoot an owl, lost my arrow, and realized that maybe things weren’t going to be so straightforward.

Which I guess is pretty fitting for a survival game, really. 

This pixel forest is pretty

Considering the fact that this forest is made entirely of pixels, none of the detail is lost. The scene is still incredibly inviting, even to my city-loving self, and you can’t help but get fully immersed in the world around you as it scrolls by. The sky cycles from a gorgeous tinge of red at sunrise and sunset to glorious blue during the day and black as night falls, and any water you come across looks incredibly refreshing. 

One thing I did notice in the demo is that items you can pick up don’t highlight as you walk over them, which initially led me to miss some valuable resources early in my playthrough. However, I quickly learned that using your mouse to hover over the ground will alert you to anything that might be useful, letting you grow a hefty hoard of resources as you explore. 

The details are what really caught me in Wild n Chill, though. There were times when I was intent on exploring and, thanks to my focus being elsewhere, I missed the fact that the character was apparently freezing. I might not have noticed at all had I not seen him rub his hands together and breathe out steam, so those tiny little details really do make a huge difference. 

Not entirely alone

Aside from the unnamed dog at your side, it’s easy to feel like you’re alone in the wilderness while playing Wild n Chill, but that’s not the case. Toward the end of the area available in the demo, you meet an elderly woodsman in his cabin, who takes you in for a cup of coffee and some friendly advice. He’s also happy to help you out if you can give him something in return, which is useful because he has proper axes that are much more desirable than your stone-tied-to-a-stick setup.

Not everybody, or more importantly, everything, you meet is going to be friendly, though. According to the woodsman, you’re entering into “bear country”, which is absolutely not reassuring and almost enough to make you want to turn around, give up everything, and simply accept that you live in the woods now. 

On the plus side, you won’t necessarily have to brave bear country alone. According to the Steam page, the full version of Wild n Chill will include online co-op, so you can drag your friends along for moral support as you progress through the wilderness. Co-op isn’t available in the demo, sadly, but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying some alone time in the great outdoors. 

Wild n Chill doesn’t have a release date available just yet. The demo gives you access to the first area that will be available in the full game, though, and is enough to lose yourself for a couple of hours if you don’t rush through and instead spend some time exploring and crafting.