While not having targets on their backs, developer Noodle Cat Games are earnest in getting a name for themselves with its big new game Cloudheim, an action-adventure online title with co-op and crafting. Well, more action than crafting at least from my playstyle point of view.

Norse By Norsewest

Cloudheim’s selling point is its physics-based combat system where you’re literally bouncing around and jumping skyhigh place-to-place as a new warrior/explorer who can learn up to four different styles of combat (classes). These include ranged and two-handed weaponry, along with sword-and-shield and dual wielding, the latter being my top pick because of its speed.

There’s also the base-building to go along with the aforementioned crafting aspect. You have a base camp on the back of a flying turtle, where you build structures for creating, smelting, and even selling. You have helpers named Bolins who can gather resources for you while you’re out fighting and faffing about. Most importantly, you can choose to pay little attention to the crafting and just worry about getting loot, exploring, and fighting all manners of creatures.

The game’s story mode -where you have to build up your village after the ruin wrought by Ragnarok- has you playing up to two major islands, but there’s a lot of fun to be had. It feels good chaining attacks against a horde of “slimes” and goblins as you switch between your dual weapons and your ranged spells. The actual plot and narrative is just window dressing, but at least you can jump straight into the action without worry of missing out. And you’ll need to do a lot of exploring and quest-completing like any RPG to get World Stars.

World Stars are the currency that lets you unlock new islands, and you can find them from puzzle completion, boss fights, and dungeon completion. You’ll also level up your Player stats, Class level, and weapon stats, but the rule of thumb is that if you’re not doing enough damage and taking too much, it’s off to grinding side quests or crafting better goods & bases. It can be quite a grind just getting to the capstone island of Early Access, but Cloudheim is just following the tropes of its genre. Granted, it is fun to jump around and check out every nook and cranny of the island, but the tedium will get to you if this is your umpteenth action RPG experience.

Ragnarok-And-Roll Out

Much like the floating islands and bright sunny aesthetics displayed in this Norse-influenced worldscape, Cloudheim is as relaxing and airy as they come. There’s really no rush in exploring and combating everything the islands have to offer, especially when you have three more people you can party up with and wreak havoc.

While the game still has to determine whether it’s craft-focused or adventuring-focused, rather than be a lot of things at once, what we ended up with has promise. It’s not perfect, but at least it has the building blocks that could lead to a truly memorable gaming experience. The “early access” portion of this title is warranted; there are holes on the good ship Cloudheim to steer away from, but the base faffing about and fighting at least will keep you engrossed for hours on end. It’s not as engrossing and unique as F2P fares like Where Winds Meet, but goshdarn it if it isn’t trying hard to cater to Western sensibilities of online RPGing.

Early Access copy provided by publisher. Cloudheim is out right now for PC (Steam).