Farming (or on this case, ranching) simulators are a dime a dozen now, and Cattle Nation doesn’t fairly do sufficient to face out within the practically oversaturated style regardless of doing a number of issues fairly effectively.
Welcome to Cattle Nation
In Cattle Nation, gamers are shifting to a small, Western settlement to begin up a ranch. I obtained my fingers on the preview, which options the primary week of play. The playable week highlights the Welcoming Committee, a gaggle of townspeople who will introduce you to areas round city. On the finish of the week, there’s a competition to shut the chapter.
That’s the place the beta ends (though, I used to be capable of restart the competition again and again because it was fairly buggy and would restart as an alternative of ending).
For probably the most half, Cattle Nation performs like what you’d anticipate. A day consists of taking good care of your vegetation and livestock, speaking to the village individuals, exploring, and mining.
The Good Aspect of the Western Entrance
The aesthetics of Cattle Nation are cute, particularly on the precise farm. Adorning and designing have been a few of the highlights of the sport for me, although the Cattle Nation beta offers gamers fairly a little bit of indoor and out of doors objects to brighten and construct with proper from the beginning.
One other facet of gameplay that stands out is the mining. It’s very distinctive for the style, with a vertical, blocky design that’s extra harking back to Terraria or Minecraft than any well-liked farming sim. This wasn’t a nasty factor, and it’s a giant bonus for the opposite vanilla components of Cattle Nation.
Cattle Nation can be very stable about its theme. The Western font is unattainable to disregard, and each participant has a heavy accent and lingo to match. Whereas this may very well be a bit overdone, I preferred the truth that it stayed true to what it goals to be.
Cattle Nation’s Folks Have been Attention-grabbing, However Sparse
The largest drawback with Cattle Nation was simply the village. Indie farming sims are largely beloved due to the individuals inside them. Essentially the most profitable titles perceive and make the most of this, and Cattle Nation doesn’t hit the mark.
Practically each NPC within the beta is a romanceable NPC. It appears like a spot for the new singles emigrate to, and there are only a few individuals exterior of them. This makes the city really feel actually shallow and prefer it’s constructed across the participant as an alternative of a spot the participant is shifting to.
It doesn’t assist that the NPCs don’t actually go anyplace. They largely stood round and didn’t really feel like they’d any objective within the sport besides to exist for the participant to speak to. It doesn’t really feel such as you’re a part of a group in any respect, and it actually hampers how immersed you will get.
Nonetheless, the Welcoming Committee of characters who gamers can spend time with all through the week was very well-written. It’s unlucky that the city feels so shallow when the writing of the characters feels so deep.
General, Cattle Nation Has Some Main Beta Woes
Cattle Nation continues to be in beta, so there’s an excellent likelihood that the problems will be labored out. Contemplating the excessive components of gameplay, it will be actually nice if Cattle Nation felt extra immersive by launch – cozy farming sims is perhaps round each nook, however these of us who love them will hold taking part in them.
Cattle Nation was previewed over roughly 3 hours of gameplay on PC with a key supplied by builders. All screenshots have been taken through the preview course of.
