My Little Universe Review

Every now and then an indie title comes along and reels me in. My Little Universe is a game that has been around on PC for around 18 months and finally makes its way to Xbox consoles. I’ve been doing a lot of hacking and slashing on Assassins Creed Shadows and this experience has been a nice little distraction from blood and gore. For the majority of this review I played alone, but there is the option to play with up to three other players locally. So if you’re looking to friends or family members involved, then this may be a journey for you.

Get To Work

The premise of My Little Universe is very simple and that is to gather resources to open up further areas. Expanding areas is carried out by cashing in some of your stockpile. You start out with basic tools which is all you need to get going, an axe, pickaxe and a sword. These can be upgraded as you progress to mine quicker or deal heavier attacks and so on. When starting the game you can chooose whether to auto mine and attack or perform these actions with button presses yourself. I opted to do it automatically which turned this into the perfect podcast game for me.

Upgrading weapons, building bridges and other elements require you to trade in your wood or iron to machines to make into planks or girders. I recommend early game in getting some stock of this so that you’re not having to track back to an area where these are present. Certain areas require you to obtain keys and special items in order to unlock another section of an area or open a portal to the next. Larger areas sometimes dominate a space and you’ll have to defeat them to continue. I did find some portions of the game a little bit of an annoyance paticularly in swamp areas when you’re trying to gather resources and several crocodiles keep respawning to come and attack you.

Level Up To Gain Buffs

Levelling up presents you with a choice of three different cards to gain advantage. It could be more HP, more attack damage, faster gathering speed amongst several other options. It is useful to try and keep these in your arsenal as dying means you’ll automatically sacrifice one of these. You can swim in water although you’ll potentially be consumed by sharks. Lava will cause you damage or death and there is an option to go from island to island via raft. Once you finish a world you can move onto the next.

Visuals & Audio

On the surface My Little Universe is very basic and simplistic. Resources and enemies constantly regenerate, so that you never struggle to mine the materials you require. The variance in landscapes, enemy types and resources is what carries the game from becoming stale. Whilst it is repetitive in its core mechanics, the design team have provided a variance within the worlds with well blended ccolour. Sound effects are very minimal with audio for mining and attacks, making for a very casual laid back experience.

Final Thoughts

My Little Universe surprised me with its addictive gameplay loop to the point I kept coming back for more until I finished it. Whilst the game is never particularly challenging, you do feel a sense of progression as you dive deeper into each area. I put a little over 20 hours into the game, so there is plenty of content here if you want to achieve 100%. Whilst I couldn’t seem to get hands on with my Lenovo Legion Go alongside my Xbox Series X, I am looking forward to playing again in handheld mode. The game should be Xbox Play Anywhere on launch, so those with PC/Handheld devices should be able to get their fix.