I can’t say I’ve ever taken too much to survival open-world and similar type games, though I’ve given them some chances: I’ve played a little of Terraria, a bit more of Starbound, had fun in some Valheim co-op, and just finished up a co-op run of Grounded. I do get the appeal of them, even if none have truly captured me. So, how does Necesse, this new indie survival/action/management/etc. making waves, do?

I certainly see a lot to like, even if it hasn’t quickly enchanted me like so many other people from its 6 years of Early Access to its October 1.0 release. I’m not sure how much of my feelings is Necesse itself, really, or the type of game player I (usually) am.

A description of all that Necesse offers would take up too much space, which already is a selling point here. In brief, you have a lot of (interrelated) options of where to spend your time: the typical open world survival/crafting loop with building up a village, exploring, and mining; adventuring to defeat monsters and bosses, making new armor and weapons to face new challenges; managing your village with new recruits who can farm, mine, and adventure with you; and really everything in between in this procedurally generated world.

If that does sound at best like a combination of something more than the typical crafting-centric game and also a bit generic, that’s because it is. I think a strong point of Necesse is the different things you can do and how they can interact, while a weak point is that (so far) I didn’t get any sense of place or story or anything particularly unique in execution in the individual elements.

Though that is also somewhat of a generic complaint for these types of games, isn’t it? The more free-form games excel most when it is the stories you create from playing it yourself, rather than what the game tries to tell you or make you do. For me, this has led to memorable unexpected moments in open-world settings, like epic getaways from the police in any of the GTA games, first encountering wandering giants in Skyrim and being knocked sky high, or descending to Siofra River in Elden Ring. But it is also why I think I tend to lose interest or be distracted by other games with tighter gameplay or narrative focus. Usually, these more open games don’t get a hook in me, or not one that persists after I haven’t played in a little while.

The pixel graphics style is fine if generic, while the music definitely has some charm. Nothing really stands out in terms of style or art direction, fitting into very familiar territory with the graphics and sometimes clunky interface of menus. Movement, animations, and all that are rather minimal, and the overall look and feel of the game is very much what you picture for a “basic indie.” But, as is often the case, that belies what these games are all about: not the graphics, but the systems and gameplay.

Generics aside, that isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed my first forays with Necesse. It is quick to harvest enough materials and with a full array of recipes at your disposal, craft early equipment upgrades and build out a village, getting enough steam to get some new villagers to help you expand further. Every early moment brings new questions (what do I do with this ingredient? what’s over there? how can I kill that giant spider?), and you can get pulled in many different directions.

Adventuring and mining underground has a real sense of the unknown, helped a lot by the actual darkness down there. Unlike too many games, here you can’t see much at all, and even having a torch in hand doesn’t help a lot. Instead, you should be placing torches (bring plenty!) every so often, which has a handy hot key and will show up on your map. Still, you are bound to aggro some monsters and quickly need to fight and usually back off in a safe (known) direction. It is simple but works well to evoke danger and exploration, with this type of darkness/light play too often underutilized in many games.

If it wasn’t already clear, Necesse is a big game with lots of systems and freedom for the player. The game does start you off with a short tutorial, but it doesn’t give you too much to go on. You learn some basics of gathering resources, interacting with NPCs, crafting, where the ladder down to the underground area is, and really not much else. It is better than nothing, but not much to really get you going.

Case in point, it ends with a quest to use a Mysterious Portal at night and defeat a boss, and urges you to continue on these quests, but leaves it at that. Only after some wandering around underground did I get the portal item to drop (and I don’t think you’d get it above ground, or at least not likely?), but I really thought I was missing something obvious about where this was. I’m glad I didn’t spend too long wandering the forests at night looking for a portal, though the general idea of getting you to explore on your own is certainly important. And killing that first boss was a key progression upgrade, dropping needed materials for unlocking more crafting. Bosses have special (first-time) drops like that, or permanent increases to things like health or trinket slots, which give you abilities like dashing, blocking, or passive bonuses. While the quests from the Village Elder give you a basic direction, really you can find this all out on your own by exploring and experimenting.

Speaking of exploring, very quickly you find all sorts of different climates, villages, monsters, underground mines with tracks racing off to the unknown, and so much more. There’s lots to see, with each new piece adding to more you can do, whether wool from sheep and making a farm, or minerals to forge into new items.

There are systems to “discover” (there is some in-game help ) as well, like chests being used for villagers to keep stocked, managing your villagers’ tasks, defending against raids, your combat build, and so on. By the way, combat has plenty of options from what I’ve seen (swords, bows, etc.), though it generally feels floaty and similar to (at least starting levels of) all those games where your weapons just continuously swing and you run into enemies.

Technically Necesse runs well (native Linux!), with a few minor issues. The sound is sometimes absent and requires a game restart, while the default keybinds on the Steam Deck sometimes don’t work (like some of the menu buttons in certain inventory views). Though I think that is from the switching between trackpad controls and not, which have different actions. Those defaults are generally pretty good, with the touchpad/joystick mouse to fall back on (or to use more generally), but I do find it a bit tedious to do extensive menu or crafting/building-related tasks. Though again, that’s a typical genre issue more than this game in particular.

One big area I didn’t try at all was multiplayer. You can be in giant servers with hundreds of players, or dedicated servers with just your friends, both of which open up a lot of this genre to me. While I can fall into that loop of gathering and exploring into the crafting, I find it much more fun to share that with friends. Both dividing up the more menial tasks and getting to make even grander designs to show off to each other (cooperatively or competitively) breathe more life into this genre for me.

All this is to say, I have barely scratched the surface with my initial hours. Coming back to my earlier point, this is the real crux of this kind of game: huge freedom to make it what you want, but also the huge freedom to just bounce off. And, with the recent version 1.1 teaser (melee buffs, endgame updates, new perks, … and sharks!), it looks like Necesse will be one of those games that just keeps adding more, maybe making this the next Terraria-type to take over your life. Look no further than the ginormous settlements people have constructed. I’m just not sure if that’s me. And that’s because of me, not Necesse.

Then again, every time I look and think about Necesse, I want to try some more, so maybe it will get me yet.

Necesse is out now on Steam.