Breakwaters is a new action-adventure title developed and published by Soaring Pixel Games which is a studio comprising of just five people. Breakwaters is their brand-new project, and it is out now on Steam in Early Access where the developer intends to develop the title alongside players and their feedback. This is our review of the Early Access release of Breakwaters in which we control water using yellow crystals and take on huge titans. At the time of publication of this review, Breakwaters is in a pretty stage of Early Access, so this review represents the current state of the title.
Breakwaters is not particularly a survival sim because you did not crash on an island. At its core, it is a crafting sim where you must craft various things in order to survive in the world, but the more focus of the title is on its story where you must investigate the various titans and their connection with the world of Breakwaters. Breakwaters features a procedurally generated world which means that every time you start a game, it will feature a new world for you to explore. There is basic character creation at the start of the title, and you have the freedom to name your world as well. Apart from that, the game will generate a world for you on its own which you can enter and play either solo or with your friends.
What sets Breakwaters apart from the regular craft-and-survive titles is the amazing water design and mechanics. You literally get to play around with water as you use yellow crystals to displace water and move it around according to your will. Since you are on a bunch of islands, naturally there’s tons of water around you in the game. As you continue to play the game, you notice that every world has huge Titans in it that affect the water levels massively so even if you are on an island, it will often get submerged in water as water levels continue to rise and fall.
As you continue to craft and put down various items for your use, you will start making and putting down water crystals to help you manipulate water. Just water removing water, you can use specific crystals to call in water as well which allows you to remove and add water to your structures or buildings on command. Right when you start the game, you are alone with another random NPC on the island who guides you on what you need to do next and as you complete missions, you are made aware of how the crystals work, what significance do ancient runes have, and how the Titans are connected to the world.
You have huge chunks of land and vast water bodies to find and collect various resources. You start off by making basic things such as tools to collect resources, a workbench, and more items that help you craft a fully working home for yourself with various facilities. The land only offers a handful of resources and more rare resources are found underwater so you will need to displace water quite often to get your hands on those various resources underwater. Since you can swim but cannot collect resources in the water so you must move the water around and get them.
Apart from the utility, you can also use this to beautify your settlement as you can create pathways to your facilities by having a walkway between water. The building options are not too much at this point, but you can make your house, build various things for it and decorate it as well. Since the game is just in early access, I am sure that additional constructible structures and things will eventually arrive in the game which will further expand on the crafting aspect of the title. At this point, you have plenty of tools, walls, houses, wood structures, and stone structures in the game that you can craft if you can find the items for them. The game is naturally designed where the Titans will cause destruction and then you will help the local people get back on their feet once again. The mission-based story is there, and it introduces you to the game mechanics via its missions as well.
While the story is not really something that will indulge you in it, you have to follow and complete missions quickly before you stick to your crafting because a lot of mechanics are locked behind the early missions and you can only craft, even some of the basic items, once you have completed a few of the starting missions. It makes sense however the open-world approach that the developers are aiming for will be beneficial if the basic crafting is allowed early in the game at least for basic items such as a cooking station for getting your food items ready.
During the early parts of the title, I was unable to fully recover my health because I was unable to cook the meat that I had in my inventory. Apart from raw meat, there were tons of other resources too that I was unable to use since I could not craft their required stations. The inventory space felt a little low as well but that is because I had plenty of resources with me that I was unable to use anywhere. Having a place to store resources early in the game certainly helps a lot and that was not the case with me in Breakwaters. Eventually, when you complete enough main missions, you unlock all of this and then you get in the flow where you can easily manage your inventory and everything else.
Coming to the technical side of Breakwaters, the game currently appears to be in a balanced state with bugs and good bits hanging equally. One of the most annoying bits and one that should be fixed instantly is the poor and choppy framerates of the title. The gameplay bugs and glitches are not really that game-breaking but when it comes to gameplay, it breaks or makes the game. Breakwaters is not stable even when running on an RTX 3080. The water does look beautiful in the game, but it is not something that my PC cannot handle. The camera is also pretty clunky as it blurs out the whole screen while rotating the mouse to look around. These are small issues, but they need to be optimized on priority in order to improve the playability of the title.
For maintaining a healthy player base, the developers need to work on certain things asap while making sure that they are adding new content to the game as well. I was hoping for less content but optimized gameplay, but it turns out that the game currently offers plenty of content, but the gameplay is not smooth. This is not good as a lot of players will leave the title if the gameplay remains buggy and glitchy. The developer is currently a small studio and is already working on fixes as the latest update for the title brings a lot of fixes for the game. This is a good sign and I cannot wait to see how the game develops in the coming months.
Final Verdict:
Breakwaters comes from a small indie studio with high ambitions. I loved the art style of the game, and its design is good as well however the game in this state requires plenty of work. When it comes to both the front and back end of the game, it requires plenty of optimization and work. Bugs are plenty here and there and while none of them are game-breaking, they are still annoying. Since its release, the game has released a few optimization updates with new features however the developer still has a long way to go but at least they have laid down a solid foundation for the title. It is an enjoyable survival sim at its core, and I will be following the title throughout its Early Access journey to see how it comes out at the end. If you love playing water-based crafting sims, Breakwaters will be right up your alley with its beautiful water physics and decent gameplay mechanics.
Final Score: 6.5/10
