Lay of the Land, a Steam game set to release on April 8, describes itself as a “sandbox adventure game set in a fantasy world where everything is physically simulated.” At first glance, you could mistake some of the screenshots for Minecraft, with a voxel-based world and a similar approach to UI. Look a little longer, though, and the differences become clear.
Lay Of The Land Is A New Minecraft-Esque RPG
Voxels As Far As The Eye Can See
Lay of the Land‘s voxel aesthetic goes a good bit deeper than Minecraft‘s, skipping past the system of oversized blocks to allow for more granular control. A wizard tower needs to be round, after all, and that’s a lot easier to pull off here. The Steam page also promises that “fires spread and burn, sand collapses, water flows, and pockets of gas suffocate,” suggesting that the sandbox has a lot more physics and simulation aspects involved.
Where this really gets interesting is the crafting. Instead of hopping into a menu, Lay of the Land has you do the job manually, physically placing the necessary items before assembling them. The process isn’t really any more complex, but it’s a nice way to rethink familiar systems.
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Fantasy Galore
The fantasy flavor of Lay of the Land carries a lot of Skyrim‘s familiar sensibilities, from mushroom-laden forests to parapets among snow-capped peaks. It also features an extensive focus on first-person combat, with both martial weapons and magic systems on the table. One clip on the Steam page shows the player extracting a hunk of stone from a wall with a spell and then firing it at an enemy, which suggests some exciting opportunities to make use of the destructible environments.
This won’t be the solution to those seeking a complex narrative on the level of The Elder Scrolls. If you’re looking for the simpler pleasures of wandering around a fantasy realm like Skyrim and making your mark therein, though, Lay of the Land could be the perfect solution. I’ve seen more Minecraft-inspired games than I can count over the years, but this upcoming option has some of the best ingredients of any.