Impressions: Len’s Island
I try to keep tabs on every survival game that comes out as, despite first appearances, there ain’t actually that many. So, when I got notice several weeks ago that not only has Len’s Island came out of Early Access but was also free to play over the weekend, I quickly jumped aboard.
Unfortunately, after playing about 6 hours or so, the game is a bust.
The problem with Len’s Island is that it feels like an A game. As in, one less A than AA. Maybe BB would work better? This is the game’s own description on Steam:
An open-world survival crafting game for 1–8 players, blending intense dungeon crawling and ARPG combat with peaceful farming and creative building. Take on quests and explore a vast, procedurally-generated world full of danger and discovery.
Yeah, no, almost all of that is misleading as fuck. Imagine my surprise when I figured out that in this “open-world survival crafting game” you… can’t actually craft armor. Armor drops from the end chest in dungeons, but not in an ARPG, Diablo-ish way either – it’s a singular, set piece. The only other way to get armor is to purchase some from vendors, who also tie into your general tech/decoration progression. There are like four weapons in the game and you just upgrade them with identical sets of resources for each tier. Quests do exist, but they are achievement/milestone style quests rather than any kind of coherent narrative. Perhaps things get spicy later on, I dunno, but I very much doubt it.
I’m not really sure there is much else to say. The general gameplay is not fun, the survival elements are nonexistent, and crafting itself is perfunctory. I haven’t been this disappointed since Farworld Pioneers.
Posted on July 21, 2025, in Impressions, Indie and tagged Crafting, Disappointing, Early Access, Len's Island, Survival. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
In An Age 
I’ve been binging on The Last Plague: Blight, which is EA but was on sale, so why not :) It’s the classic survival experience (i.e. grind), but I find it way more palatable then others. I’m also a wimp and play on easy setting for a more relaxed experience. If you’re into this kind of games you should probably have a look. It’s a single-dev project, so it feels very consistent (even if incomplete and with some quirks).
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I had Last Plague on my Steam wishlist since… well, Steam says 3/17/23. Around that time, I think the reviews had said there wasn’t much game there aside from the immediate base elements. I’ll definitely take another look at the progress since then and see if it should be bumped up.
On the other hand, Abiotic Factor is coming out with its 1.0 release… today.
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The “main questline” is still work in progress, so there’s no long-term solution to the blight spreading, but you can play on custom settings and lower the spread speed.
For me it hits a good balance between grind, exploration and base building (which is my favourite part), but some things like agriculture and cooking recipes are still very very limited.
But for 10E, I’ve already gotten 80+ hours of play from it, so it’s definitely money much better spent than on other games, and the dev is active and improving it.
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