The Wandering Village

Genre: Management Simulation

Players: 1

.

Review:

The Wandering Village, released in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, is a Management Simulation game that has players building and managing their growing town atop an Onbu, a massive creature that looks like it’s half-brontosaurus, half-mesa.

The presentation here blends 2D elements of the town, its people, and structures, along with the 3D Onbu and the surrounding terrain, with the game’s cutscenes so clearly inspired by the animated film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind that Studio Ghibli’s lawyers may want to take a peek at this game, which isn’t bad but seems odd since outside of these cutscenes and character portraits the game has a distinctly different visual identity from the film. These visuals are backed by a subdued soundtrack and accompanied by the whumping sounds of the Onbu’s footsteps, which gradually become sorta’ soothing in their own right.

The gameplay here has players managing resources, choosing development paths, directing which structures to build where, and all the sorts of things you would expect to find in a town-building Sim. At the same time, on a more macro level, you’ll want to be mindful of the current state of your Onbu, its needs, and also issue commands for what it should do and where it should go… commands that it may not listen to if you haven’t fostered a good relationship with it.

I have really mixed feelings about this game. On the one hand, the addition of the Onbu to the gameplay really adds a striking visual element and helps to set this game apart from others in the genre, and I like the idea of having to manage your relationship with this massive creature while also tending to your village’s needs.

On the other hand, I feel like The Wandering Village really gets in the weeds with its resource management and allocation in a way that I find really frustrated. My Onbu is hungry, I should make sure it eats. So I use my trumpeter to issue a command that it changes direction towards a food source at the next crossroads. Unfortunately, it doesn’t trust me so doesn’t listen to my command. Okay, let’s build a food catapult – that way I can both address the trust issue and the feeding issue. Oh wait, no, I need rock slabs, I’d better build a stonecutter. But it’s taking forever to get my stonecutter to get built, and I see it’s because I’m short on workers. Well, to get more workers I need to raise my population, which requires my population to be happy. But their happiness level is too low for that. Okay, maybe I’ll build a kitchen to give them better-quality food? Oh, that requires a stonecutter… and workers…

Because of all of this, the game seems to require a fair amount of micromanaging – telling the folks at one building to stop working on gathering that resource so they can lend a hand elsewhere… but meanwhile everything that depends on that resource is threatened by the hiccup you introduced to the supply chain, as well as everything that depends on the thing that depends on that resource.

I’m sure some players delight in this sort of fine-tuning of a complex town dynamic, but I’ve personally found Management Simulation games like this to be tedious and frustrating – I prefer it when there’s maybe just a few resources, and when you want something done you just spend the appropriate resource and it gets done. All of this “you need A to produce B, which you need to produce C, which you need to produce D, which you need to…” yeah, all of that stuff? It’s far too tedious for my tastes.

However, despite my irritation with The Wandering Village’s granular approach to resource management, I can certainly see how it would appeal to some players within the genre. Plus, the unique premise and overall good presentation certainly makes this game appealing. Just be warned – you should be prepared to get deep in the weeds on the management elements.

tl;dr – The Wandering Village is a Management Simulation that has players building and managing a growing village atop an Onbu, a massive creature that’s basically half-brontosaurus, half mesa. The overall premise and presentation here is really appealing, and the need to balance taking care of your village while also tending to the giant creature is a fun twist on the genre. But I feel like the Management Simulation elements get finicky and granular in a way that can get really tedious, which limits this game’s appeal. But if you don’t mind constantly micromanaging every step of the supply chain process, you may find The Wandering Village to be a unique and delightful entry in the genre.

Grade: B-

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