One of the most appealing things about the survival crafting genre is how it asks us to slow down, spend some time in a place, get to know how it works, and settle in. Unfortunately, that's a double-edged sword: the same systems that pull us into a place and its particular rhythms can suddenly feel dull and onerous, and it becomes clear that a game is holding us back to cover for an ultimately threadbare offering. After spending a solid chunk of time with the Steam early access version of Bellwright, I've found that it's a lot more of the latter than the former.
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