Game: Oppidum
Genre: Action, Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam (Windows), Xbox One/X/S and PS4/5)
Developer | Publisher: EP Games
Age Rating: US 10+ | EU 12+
Price: US $29.99 | UK £26.99 | EU € 29,99
Release Date: December 18th, 2025
Review code used, with many thanks to Make Good Art Agency.
As is often the way, it takes slightly longer for games to be released on the Nintendo Switch than other consoles. This is true for Oppidum. After eight long months, we can finally play this survival adventure on our favourite handheld.
Developed by just a small team, and billed as a cosy survival and narrative adventure, with online co-op, is Oppidum worth the wait?
Rescuing Oppidum
After defining the gameplay settings and difficulty (the default is ‘as designed’, but both can be altered during play) and creating your character (more on that later), you are given a brief storyboard style introduction, fully voiced. You are told of some corruption which had spread over Insule, plunging it into darkness, and in an attempt to save the land, the final magic was used to create a portal, to summon their only hope… you.
You appear on the shore line, with a local resident, collapsed and exhausted, on the sand nearby. After some magic to allow you to understand them, Kay asks you to find some banapaya and fiber to help revive them.
You’ll need to collect lots of resources, as after recuperating some energy, Kay will guide you through setting up camp, and then, with the help of blueprints, build a workbench, storage, as well as crafting tools and armour. However, you have very limited storage, and items don’t stack efficiently, with a maximum of 14 edibles and 28 crafting items. You’ll need to plan carefully, and focus on building more storage first. Even though you can drop items, they will only stay available for collection for a short while, before they vanish.
Do be careful if you wander outside the camp bounds as wild creatures might attack. Generally, you can outrun those close to your base, but linger too long, and a couple of headbutts from the wild boar and it’s game over. You’ll respawn, at the portal on the beach and will need to return to collect your dropped belongings. After playing on ‘as designed’ difficulty for several hours and avoiding most of the monsters, I reduced the difficulty to ‘smooth’, which reduced the distance at which enemies would attack from and reduced their attack damage. Definitely a more enjoyable experience.
Corrupted creatures can also spawn, generally at dusk/night, these are harder to defeat but luckily you can sleep in your tent once it’s dark and avoid them! Sleeping and eating will restore your health.
And so the “oppi-tunity” to restore Oppidum begins.
Quest-fest in Oppidum
As a narrative adventure, expect lots of quests in Oppidum to drive the story forward. Tasks are tracked via your journal and, if selected in the settings, on-screen as well. Kay and the other Bennies will keep you busy with requests to meet so-and-so, make this or that, retrieve their lost item, etc. You’ll wander around the area collecting resources, and fighting the wild creatures in order to get the right items. You’ll need to follow the main story to get access to upgrades, new materials and new locations.
The starting map is not very useful, but (as part of the main story) you can get an upgraded version, which highlights where quests are located, and shows the key locations on Insule. This upgraded version makes it so much easier to find where some of the quests are located. You can also add your own pins and markers, which will help guide you towards your destination.
I enjoyed the flow of missions, but with the limited storage, I was constantly running between the village and my camp to collect, store or make items. Luckily, you can build a storage access point in Litore, although only after fighting some hermit crabs (which are really tricky to defeat). The quantity of items needed for quests or buildings can be quite high, for example, to restore the town hall you need 320 items. That takes up 13 of the 14 inventory slots. Maybe I’d missed some upgrade option, but it felt brutal. It’s possible to get teleport scrolls, although they take up inventory, and are consumed on use, but as one of the customisable setting, I made mine permanent.
Building Your Base
The buildings will come with their own structure; it’s not just a chest, but a platform with large crate. Buildings can be placed freely, or locked into a grid, and there is a huge area around the campfire on which to build. It’s also possible to move buildings. All buildings require a blueprint, and these can be obtained by completing quests; for example, help the farmer in Litore and you’ll get a animal pen blueprint. You’ll have a handful of decorative options to start with, and certain residents will sell more decoration blueprints.
The buildings can be upgraded to allow for better items, and more crafting slots. Quite often you’ll find that you cannot progress with a quest, until you have completed a different quest which gives you the blueprint for the needed machine/item. At times this is frustrating, especially as the requirements for some quests are really demanding. However, you can trade for some items, and you can alter the settings to get a few more resources per drop, both which make it more manageable. A good aspect of building or upgrading is that you can do it in stages, just add what you’ve got and then add more as you obtain them.
Armour, weapons and tools can only be made at your workbench. Although these items have a durability, they do not completely break, so it’s possible to repair them and this can be done whilst adventuring, if you have the right resources. Equipped tools don’t take up an inventory slot, and felling trees and mining rocks are done with just one press of the button.
One of the great quality of life settings is that, inside your base, you don’t need to carry items around in your pocket to craft, build or repair.
When you’ve completed Anu’s requests, you’ll have access to collect and use Tamai, a magic which will enchant your weapons and armour. I have yet to test this out, as I need glass to finish the enchantment desk, and to get that I need to defeat some wetland spiders (not looking forward to those enemies)!
Farming is an important part of Oppidum, as some crops are needed for the main story, and can be traded for other items. Seeds can be obtained by trading with the farmer in the village, or received as monster drops. Make sure you build a well prior to starting your farm, as that seemed the only way to refill the watering can. I found it tricky to get the right spot to water, but you can rotate the camera round to get a bird’s eye view, which made it easier to see the highlighted square. The watering process, although animated, was pleasantly quick and I appreciated the water droplets sign showing that a crop in that block still needed water.
Once the animal pen is built, you can house up to 6 animals to start. Although I like farming games, raising animals always seems to take up so much time, for little reward. Not in Oppidum! Although not the cutest of creatures, managing the animals is really easy. Eggs and pig manure are automatically placed in the barrel, at far end of the pen, and each animal’s needs (cleaning, petting, feeding, milking or shearing) is done with a press of a button for each. It is really quick and with multiple products collected, it’s definitely rewarding.
The manure is used to make fertiliser, whilst the milk and eggs are used to cook muffins. The wool (which can also be dropped by wild goats) is used to make, amongst other things, rope and cloth for armour.
The World of Oppidum and its Residents
You’ll need to gain the trust of the Oppidum bennies before they will help you. Once their requests have been met, you’ll be able to trade with some of them. There are certain items, like nails, which are unavailable in the early game, so trading is the only option. Foraged items don’t tend to be valuable, although they are fairly easy to come by in large quantities. However, you’ll find treasure items, like amber or pearls, in enemy camps, and this will help boost trade deals.
Some traders will only trade in certain items, for example the fisherman. When you finally collect enough slime, sticky things or snail eyes, you can get a fishing rod and thread. Fishing is a two stage process: first, you cast in your line; the better the throw, the better chance of getting rare fish; then you reel in the fish, keeping the fish icon in the catch bar, until it’s caught.
The scenery in Oppidum is great, and although many paths around the island are blocked to begin with, I really enjoyed exploring. There are treasure chests located in hidden spots, as well as locals willing to trade or need help, just off the main paths. However, don’t try to take a shortcut down the mountain side, your character will take fall damage.
Unfortunately, not all the residents are friendly. Fighting is a necessary, and tough part of Oppidum. Although the enemies are rated in difficulty using three skulls, some seem much harder. The main story will take you on an adventure to defeat several key bosses, and in single player mode I found them impossible. Better armour and weapons would help, but luckily, there is a ‘relaxed’ difficulty, i.e. take no damage, and after several unsuccessful attempts, I opted for that setting, just to get past the boss. The game is designed as an online multiple player (up to 4), and I’m sure it would be easier in a team to gather, battle and craft.
Who am I?
There is so much character choice in Oppidum, it can be a little overwhelming, for example, 71 hair styles, with over 160 colours and the same number of highlights, 12 eyebrow styles, 17 facial hair choices, 12 types of ear piercing/earrings, as well as 10 other piercing choices. Not to mention the 12 types of glasses styles, with 10 colour choices, which is more selection than my local opticians! Body shape and facial features can be defined via a sliding scale, (which is not easy to adjust via a controller).
Luckily, there is a randomize option for both character looks and name, and that’s how I created my character. The only alteration I did was to select my favourite colour, as this is used as the colour of your name in the dialogue, and some colours are harder to see.
Once you start Oppidum, you can’t change your looks until you rescue the hairdresser.
The Gameplay of Oppidum
Oppidum plays smoothly in both docked and handheld modes, on both the Nintendo Switch and Switch Lite. Occasionally, the machines would stop production, but removing and reloading the items cleared it. A slight negative is that the draw distance is limited; so NPCs, quest markers, and enemies suddenly appear as you approach.
There are so many options to customise the gameplay, as well as camera orientation and volume, you can choose a pre-set difficulty level, or customised the settings yourself. Have lots of health regeneration, or don’t lose any health at all; take less or more damage from enemies; get more resources; increase the day length; or stop your weapons and armour from breaking. The team at EP Games have gone to a lot of effort to make sure the game is adaptable as possible, so all can enjoy.
Time passes in Oppidum fairly quickly (about 15 minutes), although you can alter the length of the day. I found the picture clock difficult to read, and would have preferred numbers. There is an option to pause (a community suggestion), but on consoles, you’ll need to define the button first, via the settings menu. Neither looking in your storage bank, talking to NPCs, nor crafting will pause time.
The game automatically saves at regular intervals, even if there is no action. I’ve spent about 21 hours exploring, following the main story and fulfilling side quests, and I don’t think I’m quite halfway through. There is a substantial amount to do in Oppidum. However, you can only play Oppidum if you are online, connected to the EP Games server, there is no offline option.
Conclusion
Oppidum has taken me on a roller-coaster of an adventure; from the initial “Wow, this looks great!”, through the “I’ve got no storage” frustration, and the “I’m dead again” disappointment, right down to the “That’s a ridiculous amount, I quit!”
But I didn’t quit, despite the ups and downs, Oppidum intrigues me. I want to know how the story pans out. Will I be able to save the Bennies? So by re-focusing on the main story, and getting into a routine using the teleport scrolls to keep my backpack free of clutter, I am really enjoying my time in Oppidum.
Yes, some of quest quantities are too extreme to be ‘cosy’, and I’m sure the monsters would be easier to defeat in an online squad, but because of the amazing plethora of settings, I can save the inhabitants of Oppidum and do it in my own way.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot 
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