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There are certain sorts of games where I know I should be playing it as a serious survival sim and be building up and exploring depths to make advancement. Instead, I enjoy building, taking my time, and developing little communities. It happened with Terraria. While Isle Goblin is only in the playtest state, I get the feeling this could encourage the same sort of community-building creativity.
Goblins are the ultimate little guys in RPGs, which means they tend to become easy targets for heroes who want to make a name for themselves or bad guys looking to easily recruit some cannon fodder minions. That’s sort of what happened to the ones in Isle Goblin. They had a little island. They all lived there peacefully. Humans came and ruined everything. (As we can see from 2026 and the last few years, this is a trend!) Our goblin, who we can customize, is one of the survivors in the new destroyed and burned town. Our goal becomes to establish a community again, which in turn lures back lots of named goblin folk who used to live there, while also driving out any humans we find and engaging in some life sim activities like farming and crafting.
If I had to compare Isle Goblin to other games in this early state, I’d say it feels a bit like both Terraria and Littlewoodat times. I’d say moreso the latter than the former in some ways, due to the overhead view, artistic direction, and fact that we’re rebuilding a community in both titles after devastating attacks by major foes. However, the gameplay loop does feel very similar to Terraria in that we explore areas, collect resources by doing things like fishing, mining, and tackling forests and encounter the humans lingering on the island and trying to make it their own. But because there is that focus on restoration, the simulation element almost feels a little more important than survival from what I’ve seen.
Since this is in early access and Kilowatt Games’ first game, I did notice some growing pains that are changing already in the playtest build. There aren’t really very clear tutorials here. Like early on, it did mention a home needs walls, floors, a roof, a door, a light, and a bed at bare minimum so you can move one of your community members like Goggs in. Other tasks are a little more clear. For example, the Pending Research section of the Research Station shows visibly what materials you need, so you’ll know if you need to cut trees, get grass, or do some mining. I would like to see a little more structure to progression and the introduction, but I could see that changing as development goes on.
What I actually like at this stage is the fact that it’s honestly really easy (and satisfying) to take down the humans in Isle Goblin. Like I’m playing as a lil’ buddy, but she’s fast. Like in games like Genshin Impact, I 100% would go into areas my characters weren’t strong enough to in order to see if I could kinda cheese it and still survive despite possessing weak equipment or not grinding yet. I can kinda do that at this point in the game! And it’s making the playtest fun, since I feel like I’m maybe getting to see some sorts of challenges or concepts early as a result.
I like the concept behind Isle Goblin a lot, and what I got to play made me want to help build a community for these little guys so we could all be happy and safe together. At times, parts of it reminded me of how Terraria would lead to my creating cool homes and getting more invested in crafting and day-to-day stuff around my bases then actually pursuing combat and glory. It’s still pretty early days for this title, but I’d like it a lot if Isle Goblin ended up becoming a cozy little goblin life sim (and human hunting) I could invest 40-80 hours into eventually.
The Isle Goblin playtest is live on PCs via Steam, and there’s no release date for it yet.
