Stardew Valley and Minecraft are two very different games, but both have built huge audiences around giving players the freedom to decide what they want to do. The result has been a variety of games like Stardew Valley or Minecraft hitting the market, but oftentimes, those games do not carry both as inspirations. Now, a new Steam game looks to bring some of those ideas together, combining farming, crafting, building, exploration, and dungeon crawling into one survival sandbox.
On top of that, it’s worth mentioning that it’s all packaged together as an open-world survival-crafting game. There are plenty of popular genres, some of which have shorter lasting power than others, but open-world survival-crafting is going nowhere anytime soon. Its popularity likely means that Steam users should keep it in mind to check out with friends because it is co-op too.
Delverium Hits Steam on September 22
- Play your way: Settle into some cozy farming or brave dangerous dungeons to unearth rare treasures.
- Craft and build: Unlock and craft an extensive range of tools, weapons, armor, and building materials to shape your very own settlement.
- Uncover the hidden truth: Discover lost fragments of lore and hunt down the ‘Faults’ to piece together the hidden truth of Delverium.
- Wander together: Play solo or with friends, with support for up to four players via local split-screen or eight players online.
- Procedurally generated worlds: No two playthroughs are the same, with newly generated worlds filled with exotic biomes, hidden caves, and deep dungeons.
- Vibrant art and sound: The world of Delverium is rendered in colorful 2D pixel art, accompanied by music from BAFTA Award-winning composer and Audio Director Jeff van Dyck (Unpacking, Forts, Paint the Town Red).
Entering Steam Early Access on September 22 is Delverium, an open-world survival crafting game with a procedurally generated world where players can gather resources, build shelters, tend to farms, explore different biomes, and fight through dangerous dungeons. It’s essentially the Stardew Valley gameplay formula with more of a randomly seeded Minecraft world vibe. Players can also recruit NPCs for trading, craft everything from food and tools to weapons and armor, and shape their settlements as they progress.
Farming is another major part of the Delverium experience, even though not all cozy games need to be farming simulators, and Delverium isn’t exactly the ‘coziest’ game out there. Players can till soil, plant and water crops, breed animals, catch fish, and collect ingredients from the surrounding world. Those resources can then be used in cooking recipes, giving players another way to make use of what they collect while exploring.
Delverium also has a larger mystery for players to uncover. A dangerous force called the “Faults” is infecting the land, and players must find lost pieces of lore and hunt down these threats to uncover the hidden truth behind what is happening. How much players engage with that mystery is up to them, though, as the game is built to support different playstyles. Players can experience the mysteries of Delverium alone, with four players through local split-screen co-op, or with up to eight players online.
Scratch & Peek
Identify the cover art while scratching off as little foil as
possible.
With its combination of farming, settlement building, crafting, exploration, and dungeon crawling, Delverium could appeal to players looking for a mix of Stardew Valley‘s quieter activities and Minecraft’s sandbox freedom.