Drake Hollow Review

Drake Hollow pops itself amongst other survival crafting games, adding its own twist to the proceedings by having you befriend small creatures called Drakes. Lovable little anthropomorphised plants that need care, entertainment and food in order to survive. You’ll be defending your army of people-plants against the nasties in The Hollow, those known as the Feral. As a somewhat generic teenage protagonist with more character customisation than back story, you’re pulled into The Hollow by a mysterious crow, who acts as something of a narrator throughout.

Looking after the Drakes helps to expand the survival aspect by making the gameplay not just about your own survival, but that of the entire camp of Drakes you’ve amassed, too. And strangely, that is Drake Hollow’s unique selling point and minor gripe at the same time, at least for me.

See, when I dive into a survival crafting title, I expect that I’ll have to maintain some kind of crafted base-like structure from the ongoing attack of an enemy, and I’d also expect to be having to at least fend for myself or other co-op players, ensuring that we’re well fed, going out into the world to gather resources to ensure survivability. These aspects are a given in a survival title, however, adding to that the task of having to maintain a colony of plant creatures adds a management aspect to the game that takes precious time away from the exploring and building aspects, and can sometimes feel a little bit more grindy than it needs to be, especially in the mid to late game, often having to take precedence over doing more pressing things. This is compounded by the raids against your base that happen every so often, usually adding a travel back to your base island then traversing back when the threat has been expelled.

In turn, the gameplay loop of exploring, defending and crafting really hits the nail on the head here in Drake Hollow. Gathering resources isn’t a chore, with an inventory size that’s neither too small nor too big; and there’s no actions that take an absurdly long time to complete either. This goes for crafting, too. With the building of base items taking only the time for your Drakes to get to it and build, most of which is a few seconds, however, those of a “everything-must-align-on-a-grid” disposition may want to steer clear as Drake Hollow is entirely free with where you place things down. Combat is fluid, yet dangerous, with a decent heft to the weapons you can use from out and about in the world. You can easily become overwhelmed by the Feral and have to take a breather, or regroup for better weapons to take them on with. Without the ability to lock on to a certain enemy, combat can sometimes be a little on the frustrating side, if only because you might swing-and-miss, and that may just be the difference between life and death for you or the Feral. Given there’s not much of a consequence to dying outside of a loss of time, the frustration is somewhat mitigated.

By and large, it’s very difficult to end up in a state where there’s nothing to do in Drake Hollow. There’s always Drakes to be levelling, always resources to be gathering and always islands to be exploring. But in the enjoyment of exploring and gathering, you’re constantly being pulled away by having to defend the base or ensure your Drakes have enough entertainment or food, and that can get tiring when you’re wanting to progress through the (albeit limited) story.