I hate the survival genre, but Witchspire may just change my mind

There are very few game genres I hate. I’m not a sports fan, for example, so while I’ll happily cheer on the Texans during NFL season, you won’t catch me playing Madden. Similarly, I’m not a fan of games that mimic real life; I want to roleplay as a magical spell-slinging mage, being a mafia don simply doesn’t do it for me. But survival games are perhaps my least favorite of all. The idea of chopping down trees for hours on end while simultaneously managing hunger, thirst, and my own IRL sanity is an absolute chore, and even the most fantastical entries in the genre like Runescape Dragonwilds and V Rising consistently fail to hold my attention. When I learned that Envar Studio’s debut title, Witchspire, was, indeed, a survival experience, my heart sank a little - the trailer was amazing, and the aesthetics are perfect, but could I overcome the aforementioned thirst, hunger, and depression? At Gamescom 2025 I sat down with head of studio Liam O’Neill and game director Oliver Granlund for a guided tour of Witchspire’s magical world and, maybe, just maybe, I’ve found the survival challenge for me.

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