Voyagers of Nera Preview - Low-Key Tropical Survival

Quite a few survival crafting games take place in a tropical setting, and they each have their own spin on the formula — whether it's aiming for realism or leaning more toward a fantasy adventure. In this Voyagers of Nera preview, I'll go over the good (and the bad) of this latest survival crafting experience from Treehouse Games.

Voyagers of Nera is the first title from Treehouse Games, a remote-first game developer. Players take on the role of an "Echo," a long-dormant guardian who has awoken to a world in chaos. Now, it's up to you and your friends to rescue lost spirits and defeat monstrous creatures of all sizes across the land.

A Spiritual Awakening

Voyagers of Nera is fairly light on story, at least in its Early Access launch version. You've been hibernating for a long time, and the world has gone to hell in a handbasket in your absence; now it's up to you to rescue lost "Guide Spirits" and set things right.

The first hour or so of Voyagers of Nera is standard fare for a survival crafting game tutorial; you learn basic movement and combat as you rescue a Guide Spirit from enemies. Once that's done, you emerge from the temple to find yourself on a beach with a massive stone arm lying in the distance — welcome to The Embrace.

Voyagers of Nera is fairly casual on the "survival" part of the survival crafting genre.

Your first step is to craft some basic tools and build a Spirit Anchor. The Spirit Anchor is a massive stone monument that protects the area around your base and gives rescued Guide Spirits a safe haven from the forces of darkness. As you build out your base, you'll level up and gain the ability to unlock new items in the Knowledge Tree.

Voyagers of Nera is fairly casual on the "survival" part of the survival crafting genre. The food system is akin to Valheim; you can't starve, but you'll want to eat food to buff up your health and other stats. As long as you have a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in, you won't have to worry too much about maintaining your health.

I'm On a Boat

The Early Access launch version of Voyagers of Nera has a map that is split into three distinctive regions: The Embrace, The Reef, and The Greatwood. These areas are separated by masses of rocks known as "The Deep," filled with a corrupting aura and stalked by a massive sea monster that can tear you to pieces.

You can travel from island to island within a region by running, swimming, or using a Skimmer (which is essentially a magical surfboard), but you'll almost certainly need a proper boat to travel between the major regions.

Both of the available boats are fairly large, and it can be difficult to navigate some of the tighter waterways. It's especially challenging to use a boat as a solo player since you'll need to raise the sail to gain speed and then move to the rudder to steer it. It appears that the bigger boats are intended to be piloted by a crew of two people.

Fortunately, you only really need boats for traveling between regions or moving large amounts of cargo; you can get by traveling within a region using your Skimmer and glider. Still, it would have been nice to have a larger boat with some cargo space that could be piloted by a solo player more easily.

Swimming in Circles

However you travel, your ultimate goal is to rescue the Guide Spirits of the world one by one. Each rescued Guide Spirit powers up your base just a little more, allowing you to use new crafting stations to better equip you for the more difficult zones.

You can explore the world to find Guide Spirits on your own. You'll get a warning message that a nearby spirit is in danger when you're close, but it can be difficult to find them sometimes. Fortunately, the Spirit Anchor can be used to point you to a Guide Spirit in the region that you have not yet rescued.

Regrettably, it appears that the Spirit Anchor can only point you to one unrescued Guide Spirit at a time, and that results in a somewhat predictable gameplay loop: find a Guide Spirit, rescue it, return home, and use the Spirit Anchor to find the location of the next Guide Spirit to rescue.

Your quest to rescue the Guide Spirits is dragged out by a lack of useful fast travel. You can build an Ancient's Gate to easily travel between two bases, but you can only have a handful of bases total. As far as I can tell, there is no item to quickly teleport you back to your base in the game yet, either.

Wading Through the Shallows

There isn't much preventing you from building a boat and sailing all the way to the last region, although that's ill-advised; as you might expect, enemies get progressively tougher as you move to each subsequent region. You can't rescue most Guide Spirits if you're not equipped to kill the enemies holding them hostage.

You're also limited to only one base until you level up your Spirit Anchor. Currently, you're limited to a maximum of four Spirit Anchors; that's just enough for one base in each region, plus a spare. You can build wherever you like, but the functionality of a base is hamstrung without the multitude of buffs a Spirit Anchor provides.

Although Voyagers of Nera's world is fairly wide, it feels seomwhat shallow with a lack of side activities for you to take on.

The meat of the game is rescuing Guide Spirits, leveling up your Knowledge Tree to craft more gear, and eventually progressing to more difficult regions. Each region introduces new enemies and new obstacles for you to face, so there's a serviceable amount of variety in the combat challenges you'll encounter.

That said, there isn't much beyond the core gameplay loop of alternating between rescuing Guide Spirits and crafting better gear. Although Voyagers of Nera's world is fairly wide, it feels somewhat shallow with a lack of side activities for you to take on.

Voyagers of Nera Preview | Final Thoughts

I enjoyed my time exploring the world of Voyagers of Nera. I had fun exploring the islands and rescuing Guide Spirits, but the lack of things to do between those core gameplay objectives made it feel a little light on meaningful, engaging content.

Voyagers of Nera could be a great survival game once it has matured a bit, expanded on its features, and added a little more variety in its gameplay. Unless you're dead set on playing it, it's probably best to hold off on playing this game until it has a couple of major content updates under its belt.

Voyagers of Nera was previewed over approximately 99 hours of gameplay on PC via Steam with a key provided by the publisher. All screenshots were taken during the preview process.