My short review of the game after 500+ hours

[Farrow-1]

I love Vintage Story. So much. I have probably logged over 500 hours in the game, 250 hours alone on my current survival world. I am by no means an expert on the game, since I am a filthy casual, and I am pretty sure I never once did anything optimally. I never even built one of those huge mega windmills. It’s just not fun for me. I like it cozy. I never really dove into animal husbandry either, and never even touched the fishing system once. But that is something this game excels at. Even if you take things slow, if you play unoptimally, you still feel like you’re making progress, even if it’s just baby steps. I found Iron after around 120 hours, and had steel by 150. I don’t know if that’s a good time or not, but I was so proud when I repaired that full set of Blackguard armour I had lying around, which I then used to tackle the resonance archives and the other story content. So by now, I think I have enough experience in the game to be able to leave an informed review, while still being able to look at the game through the eyes of a casual gamer who might not know the best strategies and all that. So, here we go:

What I like:

- All the story locations are so pretty, and I found myself coming back to Nadyia a few times just to look at the nice houses.

- The music is so good.

- The story itself is nice and engaging, and I had lots of fun scrounging together books and scrolls to piece together what happened.

- Winter is absolutely beautiful. I adore it.

- The whole Metallurgy is incredibly satisfying, especially the three types of bronze mid-game, which all have different use cases (tin bronze for armour, bismuth for tools, black for weapons). Also the ability to get critical hits by sharpening weapons is a nice reason to spend a little more time in the forge. I like having things to do. The tempering and quenching of metal tools is also a great system. (RIP my meteoric iron pickaxe though. It shattered twice back-to-back. )

 

What I dislike:

- The Elk. It is super useful, true, but actually riding it is a pain. The movement is kinda janky a lot of times, and the fact that it takes six seconds to do a 360° rotation makes it feel so sluggish. Also walking up any kind of incline is just frustrating. The Elk gets stuck so. much. Even on shallow hills it keeps slowing down. And it’s borderline unusable once you enter any kind of semi-dense forest or „large scale hilly terrain“. I often times just went on foot and played the flute every couple hundred blocks so my living, walking extra 20 storage slots would follow me.

- Boats are also kind of useless (I think). The way my world generated made it so most „oceans“ were essentially just big lakes, encircled by landmass on all sides, so it never really made any sense to invest so many resources to build a boat that doesn’t actually let me traverse vast distances. That might just be an issue with my specific world generation though, so take it with a grain of salt.

- Wolves are too aggressive. Irl they don't really attack humans, plus since Seraphim are made from sand/clay or something, we aren't even a tasty treat! Also I just don't want to kill good boys and girls...

 

What I’d like to see in future updates:

- Wells. The inability to create water source blocks makes sense, but the general inability to get unlimited water inside a base is kind of frustrating in the long run. We need wells. Make them expensive, I don’t care.

- Palisades like the merchants have them. They look cool and I want some. Yes, I know, I could chisel them, but that would take ages. Give us craftable palisades.

- Gambeson/Gamboised armour should give warmth like the bear pelt armour does. Balance wise, I understand that giving the metal armours warmth, even though realistically some would, might be too good, but gambeson armour is so expensive, so I think it would make sense to give it warmth. It’s literally very thick cloth. How is it not warmer than wearing nothing? Having to downgrade to a protection tier 1 armour to explore in the winter or far up north kind of sucks. Having the tier 2 gambeson armour would be such a great quality of life improvement.

Edited August 4 by Farrow-1

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Farrow-1 said:

- Boats are also kind of useless (I think). The way my world generated made it so most „oceans“ were essentially just big lakes, encircled by landmass on all sides, so it never really made any sense to invest so many resources to build a boat that doesn’t actually let me traverse vast distances. That might just be an issue with my specific world generation though, so take it with a grain of salt.

The sailboat is mostly useless on default world settings, since the default generation doesn't really have much for large bodies of water. I'm assuming that's partly because aquatic content is still being worked on, so until there's more stuff to do on the water it doesn't necessarily make sense to have a lot of it everywhere. It could also be that the devs want to experiment more with landform/continent generation before upping the water percentage on default settings.

In any case, I've found that setting landcover to be 70-80% is a nice balance. Most of your travels will still be based on land, but there will be enough large lakes and oceans to find that the sailboat actually becomes useful.

2 hours ago, Farrow-1 said:

- Wolves are too aggressive. Irl they don't really attack humans, plus since Seraphim are made from sand/clay or something, we aren't even a tasty treat! Also I just don't want to kill good boys and girls...

Part of this is lore reasons that have yet to be explained, if they ever are. However, I think it's also due to the fact that creature AI is still being refined, creatures are still being added, and at the end of the day it's still a videogame. Things aren't going to be 100% realistic, and there still needs to be some kind of immediate natural danger present in order to challenge the player, especially in Homo Sapiens mode where monsters don't exist.

The wolves and other aggressive wildlife also serve a very important function--they teach the player that the world is dangerous, and to plan accordingly. It's not unusual for players to come to Vintage Story expecting the same general experience that Minecraft offers, but Vintage Story is very much not that kind of game, and it's better to teach that lesson sooner rather than later.

2 hours ago, Farrow-1 said:

Gambeson/Gamboised armour should give warmth like the bear pelt armour does. Balance wise, I understand that giving the metal armours warmth, even though realistically some would, might be too good, but gambeson armour is so expensive, so I think it would make sense to give it warmth. It’s literally very thick cloth. How is it not warmer than wearing nothing? Having to downgrade to a protection tier 1 armour to explore in the winter or far up north kind of sucks. Having the tier 2 gambeson armour would be such a great quality of life improvement.

I'd like to see this too, and perhaps it will be a feature in the coming armor rework. Though I think it's also the kind of feature that likely pairs well with some sort of penalty for overheating. Armor is quite insulating, and thus good at keeping the wearer warm, so it should be valuable for staying warm in colder environments. However, hot environments should prove to be more challenging when it comes to armor, since heavy armor might be protective but is a hazard in itself since it tends to lock heat in. As for the colder environments, I think the hunger and movement penalties are enough to discourage the player from wearing their armor all the time.

[CastIronFabric]

As predicted I was positive that as soon as those spikes showed on the new trader assets that people would start asking for spike mechanics for their bases, I just knew it the second I saw it. On a scale of 1 -100 I am -20 on this idea (less than zero). 

Ok, gloating aside. Wells: Hydrate or Diedrate Mod 

Edited August 4 by CastIronFabric

[Farrow-1]

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I'd like to see this too, and perhaps it will be a feature in the coming armor rework. Though I think it's also the kind of feature that likely pairs well with some sort of penalty for overheating. Armor is quite insulating, and thus good at keeping the wearer warm, so it should be valuable for staying warm in colder environments. However, hot environments should prove to be more challenging when it comes to armor, since heavy armor might be protective but is a hazard in itself since it tends to lock heat in. As for the colder environments, I think the hunger and movement penalties are enough to discourage the player from wearing their armor all the time.

Yes, I am really looking forward to the armour rework, and I hope they make it so layering actually has an impact. Having it so heavy armour slowly kills you in the heat would be such an awesome difficulty, and it would make settling in hotter environments much less op. Because let's be real, settling anywhere where it goes below 10°C in the winter is straight up self-sabotage if you are wanting to play optimally (which I don't, that's why I settled at a pretty place where it snows in the winter). Having an overheating/heat retention mechanic would help balance out the divide between north and south.

[Farrow-1]

1 hour ago, CastIronFabric said:

As predicted I was positive that as soon as those spikes showed on the new trader assets that people would start asking for spike mechanics for their bases, I just knew it the second I saw it. On a scale of 1 -100 I am -20 on this idea (less than zero). 

I'm not talking about the defensive spikes, I want the palisade walls

[Farrow-1]

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Things aren't going to be 100% realistic, and there still needs to be some kind of immediate natural danger present in order to challenge the player, especially in Homo Sapiens mode where monsters don't exist.

The wolves and other aggressive wildlife also serve a very important function--they teach the player that the world is dangerous, and to plan accordingly. It's not unusual for players to come to Vintage Story expecting the same general experience that Minecraft offers, but Vintage Story is very much not that kind of game, and it's better to teach that lesson sooner rather than later.

I do agree, in terms of balance there has to be aggressive wildlife, and that point of "complaint" was ultimately not a serious one. I like that bears and boars and goats can be aggressive too, since it adds a nice amount of spice (especially when a goat rams you and you fly off of a tall mountain you had been climbing in search for rapids, no that never happened to me, why did you ask?) I just wish there was some way to ward off wolves specifically, maybe with a torch.

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, Farrow-1 said:

I'm not talking about the defensive spikes, I want the palisade walls

ah fair enough, I do suggest Hydrate or Diedrate Mod it does wells rather well in my opinion.

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, Farrow-1 said:

I do agree, in terms of balance there has to be aggressive wildlife, and that point of "complaint" was ultimately not a serious one. I like that bears and boars and goats can be aggressive too, since it adds a nice amount of spice (especially when a goat rams you and you fly off of a tall mountain you had been climbing in search for rapids, no that never happened to me, why did you ask?) I just wish there was some way to ward off wolves specifically, maybe with a torch.

When it comes to leveraging game play and 'spice' as you put it I personally perfer directions such as Hydrate or Diedrate Mod I mentioned earlier and other mods like Carts, Immersive wood working, Butchery mod. I personally am not interested in leveraging combat like every other game on the planet does and not just because I am older. I have felt this way since I was 30 or so

Edited August 4 by CastIronFabric

[Apocalypse_Andy]

They are looking to add rivers to the game.  Hopefully that will make boats and rafts more useful by default.  I am currently on an island server.  Traversing by sailboat is very nice, mainly because you can just point your boat in a direction and stop focusing on the game for a bit while being safe.  Also island bases are very nice and docks are fun to build. Maybe on your next playthrough, add more water.  I also really like the music.  I just wish they balanced the volume between songs better.  A few of them are very loud.  What they do with seasonal change in this game is pure magic.

[Maelstrom]

On 8/4/2026 at 12:28 PM, Farrow-1 said:

I like that bears and boars and goats can be aggressive too, since it adds a nice amount of spice (especially when a goat rams you and you fly off of a tall mountain you had been climbing in search for rapids, no that never happened to me, why did you ask?)

You need to read this story: Falling with Style shameless plug.

And submit your own funny stories while yer at it.

[Kanenas]

On 8/4/2026 at 5:17 AM, Farrow-1 said:

- Boats are also kind of useless (I think). The way my world generated made it so most „oceans“ were essentially just big lakes, encircled by landmass on all sides, so it never really made any sense to invest so many resources to build a boat that doesn’t actually let me traverse vast distances. That might just be an issue with my specific world generation though, so take it with a grain of salt.

I love boats, the ability to (after some deforestation and flax farming) carry such large amounts of goods, resources, and mounts in a very customizable craft is amazing. I primarily use it to go between my main base and various resource outposts rich in gold/silver, iron/steel making materials, marble, or traders. it feels like being a bronze age merchant

That said, an experience like that requires significantly altering the world generation. I think they should change the default generation to have far more ocean