The Wandering Village Review: A Beautiful Journey with Some Rough Roads

There is something undeniably special about The Wandering Village. From the moment your villagers begin building homes atop the back of a colossal, lumbering creature named Onbu, the game offers a peaceful, painterly world that is as tranquil as it is inventive. Available now on Xbox Series X, this is a cozy, slow-paced city-builder with a symbiotic twist. While it charms from the outset, its design quirks and pacing limitations keep it just shy of greatness.

Let’s start with the most captivating part: Onbu. This massive creature is not just scenery. It is your companion, your transportation, and sometimes your unwilling participant. The bond between your village and Onbu forms the emotional core of the game. You feed it, heal it, or prod it with spikes to get it to move where you want. These interactions are some of the most meaningful in the game, and they invite you to think about your choices. Do you care for Onbu and gain its trust, or treat it like a tool to ensure your village survives? Unfortunately, while the relationship feels sincere, the consequences for either path are a bit underdeveloped. It would have been nice if the game leaned harder into the results of those decisions, giving you more narrative or gameplay changes depending on how you treat your giant host.

The hand-drawn art style is lovely, full of soft colors, gentle animations, and little details that make your village feel alive. The unique perspective of living on a creature’s back creates some awe-inspiring moments, especially as Onbu moves through different biomes. Watching clouds drift by while your village bustles with activity is calming in the best way.

However, that perspective can also be frustrating. Trees, buildings, and terrain can obscure your view, making it hard to select specific resources or issue clear orders. It is a clever design choice that reinforces the idea of building on a living, moving thing, but it does create some genuine UI headaches. Selective harvesting, in particular, suffers from these visual limitations.

Gameplay-wise, The Wandering Village is deliberately slow. You’ll often find yourself waiting, sometimes a bit too long, for resources to collect, crops to grow, or buildings to finish. The time-skip function becomes essential, with the game often running at 4X speed just to move things along. It’s not that there’s nothing to do, but the slower pacing makes it hard to stay engaged without a bit of manual fast-forwarding.

City planning has its own challenges. You cannot move most buildings once placed, which is a real problem when your needs shift or when you realize you put something in the wrong place. The only solution is to deconstruct and rebuild, which feels clunky. This becomes especially frustrating with Onbu-specific buildings, since the game doesn’t always make it clear where they need to be placed. For a game that otherwise feels meditative, this trial-and-error aspect can break the flow.

That said, it is still a rewarding experience. Building your tiny society on the back of a living beast, managing limited space and shifting weather conditions, and gradually improving your relationship with Onbu make for a memorable playthrough. There’s something touching about watching Onbu curl up to sleep while your villagers keep toiling.

Is it endlessly replayable? Probably not. Once you’ve completed a couple of runs, the appeal of starting from scratch again may wear thin. The variety in challenges and map layouts does not offer enough to radically change the experience from one playthrough to the next. Still, that first journey, or even your second, feels worth it.

In the end, The Wandering Village succeeds more often than not. It blends charming visuals with a creative concept and heartfelt mechanics, even if some of its systems feel half-baked. With a few improvements to building flexibility, pacing, and clearer UI, it could grow into something even more special. As it stands, this is a lovely game that rewards patience and empathy, and is best enjoyed with a relaxed mindset and a soft spot for massive creatures with big sleepy eyes.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

The Wandering Village is available for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Switch and Xbox One and Series S/X.