Witchspire preview: Enriching survival crafting with a touch of magic

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Gamescom 2025 confirmed that survival crafting games are still popular, but the genre is evolving. Developers are adding new and exciting features to stand out, as seen in games like Palworld. For instance, Crosswind blends survival elements with a strong pirate theme, featuring naval battles and unique equipment. While it includes typical survival crafting, its main focus is delivering a pirate experience to fans of the genre.

Envar Games is developing Witchspire, a relaxed and cooperative survival crafting game where you also collect creatures. What sets it apart is a focus on adding magic to every aspect of the gameplay.

Before its official reveal at a Cologne event, Liam O’Neill, the lead producer of Witchspire, and Oliver Granlund, the game director, showed me around the game and explained their goal: to create an easy-to-learn survival crafting experience that really embraces a magical setting.

The game centers around witches who use wands, fly on brooms, have animal companions called familiars, and wear iconic hats. A key part of the gameplay involves these familiars: when you defeat wild creatures, their spirits might remain, allowing you to bond with them. You can then summon these bonded creatures as familiars to join you on your journeys, giving you helpful abilities both during and outside of battles.

I playfully mentioned Nintendo’s recent lawsuit against Palworld, joking about not using round objects to catch creatures. O’Neill laughed and confirmed they weren’t using any spherical objects, adding that it was a good point.

Like in many similar games, creatures in Witchspire come in different types and at various power levels. They also have rarity levels, from common creatures to extremely rare legendary and celestial beings.

O’Neill explains that these rarer creatures are essentially enhanced versions of those you’ve already found, offering a different feel. As you collect more of these high-rarity creatures, they’ll come with special abilities that can boost your base’s crafting and gathering capabilities. So, even if you’ve already caught a creature, it’s still worth trying to find more, as the rarer versions offer unique benefits.

Creating equipment works the same way – each item you craft will have its own unique stats.

Since the game features distinct traits for creatures, players are curious about whether breeding will be possible. Granlund explained they aren’t ready to share details just yet, but it’s something the team is exploring. They want to keep the game’s cozy atmosphere, so they’re carefully considering how breeding could fit in a way that feels right. They haven’t quite figured out a unique approach to it, but it’s definitely on their radar.

Because Witchspire is designed for cooperative play, its skill system is built around teamwork. As you level up, you earn points to unlock skills in different areas, letting each player specialize. For example, one player might focus on building, another on cooking, and another on combat. While you *can* try to be good at everything, you’ll be more effective if you focus on a specific role and accept that you won’t master every skill.

Like in Valheim, Witchspire lets you improve skills simply by using them. The more you do something – like chopping wood or fighting – the more related abilities you’ll unlock.

I’m really excited about the character customization in this game! The developers, like Granlund, have said they didn’t want everyone to be identical, and it shows. When you create your witch, you actually join a coven, and that’s more than just a cosmetic choice. It gives you different starting equipment, but also a special ability that really shapes how you play the game. It’s cool to have that kind of personalized touch!

Each companion you acquire also has a unique skill tree, letting you customize them further as you play.

Granlund explains that many survival games begin with the player stranded and vulnerable – often naked on a beach, needing to find water and resources like stone. The team wanted to find a fresh approach to this familiar starting point, aiming for a more streamlined experience.

I absolutely love how they handled building in this game! Instead of painstakingly placing every wall yourself, you play as a witch, so you can just…leave your body behind! Seriously, you temporarily ditch your physical form and float around in this building mode where you have total freedom of movement. The designer, Granlund, actually compared it to Minecraft’s creative mode, and that’s a perfect way to describe it – it’s so easy and fun to build!

The game also doesn’t stick strictly to real-world physics. You can build structures that float in the air, and the game cleverly responds by adding visual effects – like magical sparkles or energy beams – underneath them. This makes the floating buildings seem more realistic and enhances the experience.

O’Neill emphasizes their desire for creative control. They envision a workplace that feels like a close-knit community of friends who’ve intentionally chosen to collaborate and live together, rather than a rigid, factory-like environment – though they acknowledge that there’s nothing inherently wrong with that type of setup.

Like Palworld, Witchspire lets players use creatures, called familiars, to help run their base by working at different stations. But each station only works with certain types of creatures, encouraging players to explore and find a wider variety to improve their base.

Granlund also points out that you won’t feel hungry or thirsty. They’re working to eliminate what he terms ‘passive drains’ – things that deplete your energy even when you’re resting and not actively doing anything.

As a Witchspire fan, I’m really excited about how open the world is! It’s full of different areas – like forests, deserts, and all sorts of cool biomes – each with its own unique stuff to do and problems to solve. What’s amazing is that pretty much *everything* you can see, whether it’s a distant land or an island floating way up high, is actually reachable and explorable. It feels truly limitless!

We want to attract players who enjoy games like Minecraft but find hardcore survival games like Rust intimidating,” explains Granlund. “I personally get scared playing Rust!” While survival aspects will be a key part of our game, they’ll feel natural to the environment you’re in and depend on where you are, requiring you to find the right equipment. We’re designing it so you won’t be immediately overwhelmed by needing to find food or die quickly – you’ll have time to get your bearings.

The developers hope experienced players will quickly move past the initial, simpler parts of the game and get to the more challenging sections, providing fun for both newcomers and veterans. Envar Games also plans to include a lot of ways to adjust the difficulty, including a very challenging ‘hardcore’ mode where both the player and their companions can be permanently lost.

Witchspire also lets players fight in different ways. You can pick a powerful wand that requires precise aiming, or a less powerful one that automatically tracks enemies. A lot of your abilities come from the equipment you find, which is great for playing with friends. Instead of needing to spend hours leveling up, you can just share some strong gear you’ve made to help them catch up.

Magic plays a big role in how you collect resources in this survival crafting game. Instead of chopping down trees with an axe, players, as witches, will use magical methods. The developers felt that traditional resource gathering didn’t fit the witch theme.

Instead of traditional methods, players can use spells to gather resources like wood and ore. This is much faster and more efficient than in many other games, helping to avoid the repetitive tasks often found in this type of game. As developer O’Neill explains, while starting out and collecting the first few items feels good, doing it hundreds of times becomes tedious.

Instead of felling trees individually, you can use magical tools for faster logging. One scythe cuts down multiple trees at once, while another creates orbiting blades for a different approach. You can replant trees with acorns as usual, or use a magical scroll to instantly regrow the forest. When you run low on ores, you can even summon a meteorite to restock your supply. These methods are imaginative, efficient, and fit the game’s overall style.

Players will journey to defeat powerful bosses and complete goals, all in an effort to reach the Witchspire – a supposed gateway back home. While the game lets you create your own adventure, the world is filled with ancient ruins and different groups, hinting at a deeper story and rich history. These ruins, much like shrines in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, will challenge you with both combat and puzzles, while also revealing pieces of the game’s lore.

Witchspire is adding a feature similar to Pokémon Legends: Arceus where dark meteors occasionally crash into the game world. These impacts create small, dangerous areas filled with powerful enemies, but also valuable loot. Players can choose to explore these temporary zones while they last, or miss out on the rewards.

Granlund describes the atmosphere as warm and welcoming, but realistically portrayed – not overly idealistic. They embrace a balance of light and shadow, and draw heavily from the works of Studio Ghibli, hoping that blend of sweetness and grit will appeal to audiences. They appreciate that Ghibli films aren’t afraid to show a little darkness alongside the beauty.

If you’re looking for a survival crafting game that’s easier to pick up and play with friends – one that offers some challenge without being overwhelming – then Witchspire is worth checking out. It’s planned for release on PC in Early Access in 2026, and is designed for shorter play sessions.

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2025-10-07 17:48