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The Nintendo Switch 2 has lastly arrived, and together with it, so have a handful of launch video games. Some outdated, some new, and a few, effectively, they land someplace between these two classes.
Meet Survival Kids, a cooperative platformer, constructed on the bones of the 1999 Konami Recreation Boy Colour sport of the identical title, and developed by the minds behind the wildly standard sport engine Unity. Its inception is a mouthful, and but on the subject of the fact of the sport itself, it’s quite simple – maybe too easy.
Overview information
Platform reviewed: Nintendo Swap 2
Out there on: Nintendo Swap 2
Launch date: June sixth, 2025
In Survival Children, you play as a (you guessed it) child who, after being capsized in a mythic storm, should craft their means throughout an historic archipelago within the hopes of escape.
The twist on this traditional survival set-up is that the islands themselves aren’t static and are, in truth, dwelling turtles that may trigger the islands to flood. Whereas it’s an attention-grabbing premise, Survival Children commits to a extra informal play type, and the submerging happens solely when the participant is prepared. It’s an inexpensive selection for a sport constructed for a youthful demographic — I solely want there have been a number of sport modes for gamers of all ages, or those that could also be more proficient.
As you progress, you’ll uncover new biomes and tackle chaotic environmental hazards like purple-goo firing turrets and body-barrelling wind tunnels, utilizing earnable instruments like fishing rods, trampolines, and comically giant leaf followers to greatest them. Very similar to the premise, the degrees are equally simple and supply an often moreish workload of senseless duties to finish with pals or by your self.
Rinse and repeat
Each stage in Survival Children begins with a capsizing, and gamers wash up on the shore of a brand new island. From this level on, the intention of the sport is to consolidate sources and transfer your base camp to the best level, the place you’ll assemble a raft and begin the cycle yet again.
The elements it’s worthwhile to full this goal vary from easily-accessible vines and stones (which might be harnessed by chopping down timber or mining rocks) to hidden aeroplane wings and half-buried propeller elements. It’s not as complicated as one thing like Astro Bot by any means, however the variety of islands and the platforming challenges embedded in them had been diverse sufficient to maintain me entertained as I continued to discover.
Rather than any towering challenges or punishing mechanics, the most important antagonist you’ll face right here is your stamina, which dictates how far you’ll be able to climb on a climbing internet and whether or not you’ll be able to unearth objects. To extend your stamina, it’s worthwhile to discover and prepare dinner meals, ensuring to not burn your treasured meal in your camp’s cooking pot by leaving it on the castaway-hob too lengthy. The extra meals you load into the pot, the higher the standard of the meal, offering you with further treasured stamina.
Past staying fed, there aren’t actually any stakes to talk of. Certain, you’ll be able to fall off a cliff and lose your objects or fail to wrangle a fish. However you’ll be able to merely return and decide them up once more or simply forged your line on the identical fish a second time.
You’re by no means actually punished in your errors in any significant means, which has its professionals and cons. By maintaining the workload accessible and forgiving, Survival Children appears like an excellent introductory sport for youths who might not be accustomed to the Survival style. Nonetheless, at occasions, it feels as if it’s underestimating what youthful gamers are able to, particularly when you think about the alternate options in the marketplace like Nintendo’s personal appropriately difficult Tremendous Mario Odyssey.
Upon finishing a stage, you’ll earn stars relying on how rapidly you escaped the island or what number of collectables — known as Treasure Stones — you discovered within the course of. Early on, these stars imply little or no, and you may breeze by way of the sport – no questions requested. Nevertheless, as you close to the top, there’s likelihood you’ll must revisit an island to gather a number of extra to surpass some star-based progress gates.
With little else to latch onto, Survival Children usually feels a bit dry and lacks the character to actually make its mark. It says one thing that not even a unusual British narrator can carry the tone. The truth is, their chatter rapidly began to grate.
Play good
Between island hopping, you’ll additionally get an opportunity to customize your cartoon avatar with a choice of kitschy castaway garb. There isn’t an excessive amount of variety at first, nevertheless it’s lots to set you aside out of your co-op collaborators, and it’s good enjoyable to tweak your hair color, pores and skin tone, and ocular situation earlier than hopping right into a stage. Fortunately, this small pool of outfits is only a jumping-off level, and you may unlock extra by finishing challenges layered all through the sport.
Alongside assembly the important crafting standards, you’ll be able to full non-compulsory duties like fishing ten occasions in a row or cooking with a sure variety of substances in your pot. By reaching these non-compulsory aims, you’ll be able to unlock themed outfits to jazz up your mini-me. Many will probably be achieved routinely as you play, however on the very least, I used to be happy to have one thing else to shoot for outdoor the confines of the repetitive marketing campaign.
Greatest bit
Survival Children is at its greatest when performed with pals. Between the straightforward management scheme and the plethora of comfortably senseless processes to finish, I might chat to my coronary heart’s content material with no need to take care of an intense back-and-forth to finish aims.
Survival Children might be performed in single-player mode, nonetheless, it’s simply not almost as a lot enjoyable as it’s whenever you’re enjoying with pals. Other than serving to accumulate loot, essentially the most enjoyable I had was antagonising, and subsequently being antagonised by, my co-op accomplice. On one event, I led my fellow-survivor right into a wind tunnel the place they had been gust into oblivion.
The repercussion was that after spending ages fishing and cooking up a scrumptious meal, they threw it off the sting and out of my attain. When enjoying solo, these sorts of light-hearted interactions aren’t attainable, and as a substitute, you’re simply left with the workload.
It’s clear there’s been an effort to scale issues again in solo mode and make the degrees extra approachable, like lowering the stamina wanted to drag up objects. Sadly, it nonetheless doesn’t make up for the tedious nature of finishing the identical duties alone.
When enjoying by way of the later ranges within the sport, I discovered myself pissed off, not by the turrets taking pictures me off the map, however slightly the boring nature of carting supplies backwards and forwards with no assist. It’s admirable that the group at Unity wished to offer solo gamers an opportunity, nevertheless it doesn’t do justice to the clearly communal facets on the core of Survival Children‘ gameplay loop.
Must you play Survival Children?
Play it if…
Do not play it if…
Accessibility options
In Survival Children, you’ll be able to entry the settings menu from the primary menu or anytime in-game by urgent the pause button and deciding on the Choices button.
From right here, you’ll be able to toggle on and off subtitles and a stage timer, in addition to stage goal arrows and banners. Within the Controls submenu, you’ll be able to toggle between two structure choices. The place audio is anxious, you should use incremental notches to tweak Music, SFX and Narration Quantity.
How I reviewed Survival Children
I performed Survival Children‘ primary marketing campaign over twelve hours in a mix of single-player, native co-op, and on-line co-op.
I used a Swap 2 console in each handheld and docked modes. When docked, I used an LG OLED C2 55-inch TV, with no extra soundbar or exterior speaker system.
First reviewed June 2025