Game Labs explores wild frontier America from the eyes of natives in This Land is My Land. Players take control of the Chief, whose name is special and unique - every letter and character inputted affects his raw stats, ranging from both bonuses and penalties. This means that each Chief plays differently the more one customizes them. This is important as the Chief can survive through crafting, fighting, or more cunning approaches.

While the Chief uses a single character model, players can further customize their avatar with war paints, different hair, and various skins for their mount. Several of these options are visual, while others provide stat boosts like more health or speed. Still, this customization level is pointless since This Land is My Land is entirely based on a first-person perspective.  

This Land is My Land is basically a single-player game but also features an integrated online community. Players can thoroughly chat across the world to trade goods, notify each other of secrets, or simply make online friends. Additionally, many balance changes occur via scheduled rotations instead of constant patch updates. This leads to players having a new and different gameplay experience as each real-world month goes by.

Players can select three main difficulties for This Land is My Land. Classic is the more lenient “normal mode,” where various features are toned down or turned off to allow more exploration and freedom. Immersive survival mode is more realistic, upping the amount of danger and risk. Finally, custom modes allow one to tweak the difficulty to one’s liking, including map size, weather, and enemy strength.

One should be prepared for the single save slot per Chief. This creates an element of permanency, as one cannot undo their mistakes and must live with the consequences of past actions. However, this means bugs and no-win situations can completely ruin some save games. Additionally, sometimes saving fails outright, including when riding a horse. This can cause one to unexpectedly lose hours of gameplay.  

This Land is My Land begins with a basic tutorial, teaching players how to gather items, craft from extensive menus, stealth, rest, and ride horses. The game features a day-night cycle, making it difficult to see and, in some cases, increasingly dangerous as enemies lurk in the shadows. At these points, resting for the night or relying on a mounted steed to get around quickly is typically a good idea.

The user interface can be incredibly overwhelming and, at times, clunky. Menu upon menu will bombard players with text, commands, and suggestions. Unrelated concepts will be grouped at certain points, leaving a want for another tutorial within the current one. There is also a major inconsistency in which interface elements require holding down a button versus toggles or one-time inputs. This all results in some early fumbling of controls, and it never truly becomes comfortable to play.

Once gaining full control, the main order of business will likely be gathering supplies and other rare materials. This typically includes wood, flax, animal horns, meat, tobacco, poisons, and more varied goods. This can, in turn, be forged into important items like bows, potions, traps, and bait. More complex firearms like pistols, shotguns, and rifles are typically either purchased or looted off corpses.

The enemies in This Land is My Land is varied, with different creatures roaming parts of the map. Always abundant are wild animals, ranging from wolves, stags, boars, bears, and more. Each has its own ferocious attacks, while some remain docile until outright provoked. This makes traps extra important as they can weaken or outright kill an animal while leaving the Chief safe.

The main human enemies are settlers and the army cavalry who want to take over the area. They may travel solo or in mobs of up to 20 foes. They tend to have more varied weapons and true strategies compared to animals but tend to have less resistance to harm. Still, it is normal to stalk humans and then ambush them one at a time. Living but subdued settlers can also be grabbed and interrogated for key info or stunned for a non-lethal takedown.

Other warrior tribes are the main neutral faction. They tend to also hate the foreign settlers but may still be wary of outright joining the Chief’s cause. They typically hand out missions and other tasks in order to be convinced. Alternatively, players can fight other natives to take over their territory or beat them into submission.

Additional spare warriors can also be assigned routes and orders from the larger system menu. This can further automate gathering, crating, patrolling the area, or outright raiding against nearby factions. However, these warriors need to be armed or otherwise equipped to make sure their tasks succeed without issues. Still, it is typically a better idea to personally go to a location as the Chief. This allows both more direct control and prevents any errors from the AI or other automation.

Only a limited amount of warriors can live in each camp, starting with six in the most basic dwelling. One can further improve camps to hold up to 30 individuals using extra materials. Additionally, higher numbers yield more task options. For example, warriors will only actively fight if there are at least eight of them gathered together but can go on a more passive lookout at any stage.

Players who have collected their fill of items can open up the This Land is My Land trading interface. This allows different Chiefs to mail unwanted items directly to their friends. Players can also directly buy and sell items for in-game coins. One thing to be noted is that online mail is universal, with all saves on a profile, so it is possible to collect items on the wrong character.

The world design is awe-inspiring while not being a resource hog. Characters and environments use a fair amount of polygons but are more reliant on high-end textures to really pop out. However, some plants and other gathered items can look a bit cartoonish when viewed up close. Finally, the game has a very aggressive amount of motion blur, making it hard to see in intense fights and horseback races.
 

The sound design of This Land is My Land is adequate and fitting for the setting of frontier America. The noises of the wild nature clashing against made man wagons and whizzing bullets will easily draw in players. However, the lack of voice acting overreliance on bloated text boxes does rapidly become stale.

This Land is My Land is a slow-paced game and has thrilling payoffs, but even after many hours, it may still not be intuitive enough. The game, however, allows a great amount of exploration around the Americas, as well as the chance to build a robust native warrior village. Those seeking a deep survival game could consider picking it up - as long as they are fine with possibly losing hard-earned save data.
 

Kurtis Seid, NoobFeed
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