If you’ve been around here much before, you’ll know how much I love relaxed, laid back games. I’m happy to spend a few hours shooting at things that are trying to kill me, or tearing round a race track at 200mph, but there’s just something beautiful about coming home from a busy day and finding a game that genuinely relaxes me. Caravan SandWitch looked like it would be that exact kind of game – what could be nicer than trundling round a gorgeous set of locations in an old caravan, finding secrets and unravelling a story of discovery and determination?
Well it turns out, I was right. It’s exactly that kind of game, and I’m all for it.
You take control of a young lady named Sauge who finds a distress signal coming from her sister on her home planet of Cigalo. Confused by the fact that her sister disappeared 6 years ago, she travels to Cigalo to find a planet abandoned by the enormous corporation that had previously occupied it, with no working communications on the planet, occupants who are having to figure life out for themselves after being abandoned, and a whole host of mysteries unsolved. After catching the clearly-awesome space train to Cigalo, Sauge finds Rose, an old friend who lets her use her battered van to help find her sister. Before long she’s enlisted the help of Nefle, who over time upgrades the caravan to allow her to find signal jammers and pull open doors, opening up even more exploring and discovery.
The handling of the caravan takes a moment to get used to, but once you get the hang of the twitchy steering it’s all fine, and there’s little by way of frustration when navigating around. There’s a definite joy to driving up a deserted track, only to find a viewpoint where you can sit and stare out at the gorgeous vista laid out in front of you. For a game with this style of visuals, it’s impressive how many “wow” moments there are with the graphics.
Along the 14ish hour journey you’ll find all manner of people and robots to communicate with (and you’ll find out where the SandWitch part of the name comes from), and completing as many of their requests adds a lot to the narrative of the game, filling out the story with interlinked and thoughtfully created plot development. And the beauty here is that is all unfolds at the pace you want it to unfold at. If you want to ignore the story and just drive or walk around and find new places, or explore off the beaten track a bit to see what you can find, you can do exactly that. Or just blast through it as quick as possible and get through the story, whichever suits you best.
But the longer you take, the more you get to enjoy the lovely ambient soundtrack and audio the game has to offer. It really helps to set the mood for a chilled exploration, and while you might think this is at loggerheads with the idea of trying to save your sister as quickly as possible, it’s easy to push that fact to the back of your mind and just enjoy the game for what it is.
So with no jump scares, no risk of death or panic, and no time limits to do anything, this is a game that’ll let you unwind and relax into your gaming. That idea of wanting a way to really chill after a busy day? This is it. While you might find the hunting for resources a little painful if you’re not a fan of find-and-fetch missions, and you’ll retread a bit of old ground once you upgrade your caravan a bit, the experience is overwhelmingly positive and definitely one to help you get your stress levels back down.
Reviewed on PS5
