A Frustrating Experience That I Can’t Put Down
SPOILER DISCLAIMER: Gameplay and story spoilers ahead. If you want to discover things on your own and be surprised, read with caution
A while back I was scrolling through GamePass, as I often do, and I came across this game Robin Hood: Sherwood Builders. At the time, I was playing a lot of PalWorld, and when I read the description, it sounded like it had some similar vibes — like a building and resource gathering-type game, but as Robin Hood. Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, rather than hunting and catching Pals. It sounded dope.
I don’t know why, because now that I think about it I don’t really have any strong memories of watching Robin Hood content when I was a kit. Maybe that cartoon with the fox as Robin, but even with that I can’t say I remember many details. I never saw Men in Tights (forgive me, I’ll put it on the list).
Still, for some reason I thought it sounded dope to play as Robert of Loxleyª, so I installed the game. I didn’t play it right away — it sat for several months — but recently I had a few hours to kill and wanted to try something new. So I fired this up.
Why are We Gathering Resources & Building?
The building aspect of the game comes in the fact that, as Robin Hood, you’re creating your own society where people can be safe that doesn’t have the tyrannical rules of The Sheriff. Your society needs a few things in order to continue to grow and keep your citizens taken care of. Namely: food, shelter, work, and entertainment.
In order to provide these things, you have to build the buildings — the houses where people will live and the places they’ll work. And those buildings require various materials, which is where the logging, mining, and resource gathering comes in.
Your townsfolk need to eat too, so you have to hunt and gather meat in order to keep them fed.
As your society grows, you can assign villagers to different tasks as well. All of the above mentioned tasks are available for villagers to do for you, so you’ll have to do them yourself less and less as you progress. Although I will say that, so far, it doesn’t seem like every resource can be gathered by your townsfolk. Only certain ones. So some mining/logging etc. is still required.
ªThis is something I still don’t quite understand. Sometimes he introduces himself as “Robert” instead of “Robin”, or he’ll introduce himself as “Robin” and they’ll say “Thanks, Robert”. It’s super confusing.
I looked it up and saw that sometimes his name is “Robert”, but that still doesn’t explain why they give different names when talking to each other. One of the many strange things in this game.
And between starting to write this post and actually posting it, I saw someone refer to it as “Locksley” — which I found out was another Robin Hood movie — rather than “Loxley” which is what the captions say. I’m utterly confused by all of it.
The area that will become the town, from what I can tell, looks pretty sizable. And there even seems to be the bones for other types of buildings that will come, possibly after I reach certain parts in the game. There’s a section near a river that I just know is going to be some sort of sawmill.
Maintaining food and water levels for yourself is important in this game, too. There’s meters you have to keep an eye on and the meat that you gather can be used for Robin as well. There’s a place at your camp where you can cook the meat, and there’s a well where you can fill up water bottles. Yes, you need to have empty water bottles. It’s all plentiful, though, and it takes a while for the levels to deplete. So far I haven’t been affected by them yet.
I even tried deliberately to go hungry and thirsty to see what would happen. I chopped down trees, took on enemies, and ran around with empty food and water levels, but nothing ever actually happened. Eventually I got impatient, and moved on to an actual mission, and replenished my levels, so I’m still unsure (with the way the game saves, I didn’t want to find out what happens in the middle of a mission, and find myself reloading to a point hours in the past).
There’s also a kitchen that can be built that will give better-quality foods with more helpful properties. And of course there’s the furnace where you refine your raw materials, the blacksmith for your weapons, and the tailor for your armor. As well as training grounds to improve your abilities and even taverns for your townsfolk to enjoy.
Creating a better society for people requires, well, infrastructure. And as Robin, you’re building better infrastructure for the people of Sherwood Forest and beyond.
Issues & Frustrations
Movement and Combat
Right off the bat, I want to say this is a strange experience because the mechanics are, frankly, dogshit. Movement is clunky and inconsistent, and the crosshairs might as well not exist. You often jump when trying to dodge, and you’ll never be in the correct spot on the first try when mining or chopping down trees — which is a pretty big part of the game. If you do happen to get it on the first try, you’ll inevitably end up moving anyway because you’ll assume you hadn’t.
I’ve got some qualms about fighting that I think might be fixed by upgrading my skills in the tree, but one thing that I can’t upgrade is how it’s super inconsistent with dodging. Dodge, on Xbox, is “A”, but so is jump. When I’m sword-fighting a group of baddies, sometimes when I try to dodge an attack, I’ll instead jump kind of in the direction I was trying to dodge and I’ll still get hit. It’s incredibly frustrating.
Stealth is also an option in Robin Hood. There’s armor that decreases your visibility and movement sounds, and there’s skills in the skill tree that can be unlocked to do the same. That said, I haven’t fount it very useful — at least not yet.
In the very early-game, before you can unlock upgraded armor sets, you get spotted pretty easily. There’s tall grass to hide in, but as soon as you pop out, you’re often seen. On top of that, the game has done a pretty good job of having guards within eyeshot of other guards, so they’re not often completely isolated. And on top of that, you can only stealth takedown enemies that are the same level or lower than you; which they often are not.
Some areas I’ve noticed have birds you can use to get a slightly better view of the area. They’re glowing and if you look at them you can look through them to see where enemies are. It’s better than nothing, I suppose, but it doesn’t help all that much. The view is kind of blurry and distorted and it’s tough to tell the enemies from the other people just walking around. And Robin has a “Hunter Vision” that allows you to highlight enemies through walls (among other things) which works way better. It’s a cool idea, but is pretty meh in execution.
Once you are able to craft your first new set of armor, you’ve got two options: one geared more toward stealth and one toward health. But by the time I was able to unlock them, the difference in stealth applied by the “stealth” armor wasn’t much more than what I had anyway. And with the other set’s ability to regenerate my health outside of battle, it was a no-brainer.
Also, your primary attack button is the right trigger, but that’s also the button to move the conversation forward, so after every conversation, I end up swinging whatever weapon I’m holding right at the person I’m talking to. It’s a good thing that there’s no friendly-fire.
I tried running with both sets, swapping in the stealth armor when I was trying to be sneaky, but I found it didn’t help. Maybe late-game, when I have the armor sets fully upgraded, they’ll provide a tangible benefit. But as of right now, I just have them sitting in storage.
Also, even if you wanted to play more of a thief role, I don’t really see the point of using stealth to accomplish a task without taking out any enemies. When you look at the map, all of the enemy camps show whether or not the enemies are in the camp. Which leads me to believe that the game wants you to make it so that there are no longer “Enemies Present”. At least, that’s what I’ve been doing. We’ll see if it makes any difference as I progress (maybe I’ll update this post).
Building
The Build Mode’s only real redeeming factor is that buildings are pre-built and just need to be placed. You don’t place individual walls and floors at all like in some other games. But even simply placing them isn’t super straight-forward. When playing with a controller on Xbox, the left stick controls the mouse cursor, the right stick pans around the space, and the triggers zoom in and out. So, in order to move, you have to use a mix of the right stick for direction and triggers for motion. It’s extremely counter-intuitive. And that’s before you decide on which building you want to place.
When you select a building the left stick, as the mouse cursor, moves the building around. But now, the right stick rotates it — the stick no longer looks around the space. So if you’re not already looking at where you want to put a building before you select it, you can’t move to that spot. You have to back out, move to the space you want (using the weird controls), and try again. If you end up not liking the new placement, you have to deselect the building and do it again.
I’ve largely gotten used to it by now, and (for the most part) think about where I’m going to place a new building before I build it. But since I can’t see the size of the building beforehand, I kind of have to guess. Luckily, buildings aren’t too big and clearing space is easy. You simply have to select a tree to knock it down and make a clearing, and you get the wood from the tree as well.
Village Gathering
When you build your village and have workers mining and logging for you, gathering those resources is also kind of weird and inconsistent. There are some workers that show up in a menu on the left side of the screen in the build mode, and certain resources can be gathered from there.
Some resources, though, can only be gathered once you build a particular building. But once you do that, you have to go to, and select the building in order to gather the resource. And by that, I mean with your cursor within the build menu. Walking up to the buildings actually does nothing.
And the most confusing part? They’re the same types of materials that have to be gathered in different ways. If you want to gather ore — like copper, stone, or iron — you have to check different places. Copper, for example, can be found in the left-hand menu while in build mode; but Stone can only be gathered from the Quarry which you have to go to and select with your mouse cursor.
I understand needing different buildings and different upgrades in order to gather the various resources as I progress through the game, but make it make sense. Why do I need a quarry to get some of the ore, but I didn’t need a quarry to get the others? Why, once I do build the quarry, can’t I just select the Stones from the same menu as selecting the Copper? They’re the same type!
Houses that you build for your citizens can’t be entered either. There’s not even a door, just a wall. I mean, I get that you shouldn’t be able to get into people’s houses, but still…
And even if we can’t go through the door, shouldn’t there be a door?
This is true for Food, too. I can get Deer Meat from the side-menu, but have to select the Butcher for Hare Meat. But in order to further confuse things, Wood can only be gathered from one building.
It feels to me that it would make much more sense to expand the gather menu, or at least be consistent in some way — making all meat come from the butcher and all Stone and Ore come from the Quarry. Hell, have a third building since Stone and Marble would be in a Quarry in reality while Copper and Silver for example would be in a mine. And if it requires a building, I also feel like we should be able to interact with that it when we walk up to it.
Other Strange Quirks
Ladders aren’t real/aren’t usable. They’re in places that makes sense for a ladder to be — In some cases seemingly required — but you can’t use it. If you have to get up on something, the ledge is low enough to climb, or it’s a small hop up. And for the most part, if you can climb on it, it’s got yellow markings. Sometimes you have to make longer jumps which can be frustrating with the previously-mentioned movement issues, but no climbing ladders.
Resource harvesting is just weird; but I guess it’s not horrible. You have to be in a pretty precise position for it to register what you’re trying to chop/mine, which can be very frustrating. It’s mostly fine once you’re lined up correctly, just make sure not to move again. It’s the worst with Copper, Stone, Iron etc. nodes because they break apart and you often have to reposition yourself in order to actually register hits again.
When you are in the right spot and are consistently hitting the thing you’re trying to harvest, you get a bit of a minigame, which is cool. There’s a little popup that happens at the point of impact, and if you press the trigger to hit again right as that popup happens, you’ll swing your tool faster, while using less stamina.
When you go to use any materials you’ve gathered/mined/logged etc. you just have to wait until whatever you’re crafting completes before you can do anything else. You go to the building where you’re able to make whatever it is your’e trying to craft (yes, these ones you actually walk up to and interact with), and once you select what you want to make, you just have to stay in that menu until it’s done.
I haven’t timed it, but some things feel like they take a couple of minutes, time where you can’t do anything else. There’s no way to have my Ingot’s being made while I run over and cook some Hare. I just have to wait.
Here’s the thing…
But the crazy thing is, I can’t stop playing! I don’t know if it’s the vague familiarity or maybe because of some weird parallels to today’s political climate, I’m really enjoying playing this game.
Reputation
Something I’ve thought about in my “dream game” scenario is a situation where your reputation meaningfully improves as you do things in the game, and this game has that. It’s a subtle thing, but I feel like so few games do it well. Fable 2, maybe, being the last one I recall*. I can’t say I’m incredibly far into the game yet, but so far this game has impressed.
*Maybe I missed something, though, and would love recommendations in the comments!
In the beginning, as you see people walking around, when you’re prompted to talk to them, they’re largely dismissive. But as you build up the town and complete quests for the people in the world, you become more well-known. And when you go back and talk to people, they thank you for what you’ve done.
When you start missions, they say “you’re robin hood, I’ve heard what you’ve been doing around here” and I even had an enemy say he heard of me and wondered if it would’ve been different had I shown up earlier.
Other games will give you “reputation points” for completing missions, but rarely do I ever feel like the characters reputation actually improved. Or, it’s forced, like after a particular cutscene that didn’t actually change anything as far as the “public” is aware, but the NPC’s dialogue is different afterward. But so far, I haven’t felt either of those things, and it feels well-executed. It’s pretty obviously percentage-based (occasionally, cutscenes about the main story jut in in the middle of after-mission conversations as soon as the percentage is reached, but before the conversation is over), but I think that’s a very good thing.
As Robin gains more and more reputation, he also becomes more and more wanted by the King. Nearly everywhere there’s wanted posters calling for the capture of Hood, and a really cool detail is that the amount has been steadily increasing as I’ve been playing.
Something that takes me out of it a little is the fact that nobody seems to care about me being wanted, though. I’ll have conversations with people directly next to a Wanted sign with my name on it.
I mean, I understand that I’m helping them out and that they’re against the king, too; but you’d think there’d be a couple of opportunists that would try to turn me in for the reward money (it’s at a point where it’s more than I’ve ever had at any one time), or at the very least in fear of defying the king. But nobody seems to care, and that’s kind of weird.
Reactions, Other Than Dialogue
In some instances, you’re tasked with sneaking around an area that’s occupied by both enemies and regular people. I mentioned earlier that things can be done stealthily, but you can also just kill all the guards in the area and find what you need.
While you’re doing this, though — the “regular” people are simply going about their business around you. It’s strange. I understand not liking the rule that the one is under, but it’s weird that there’s literally no reaction to killing guards right in front of people. That would be a crazy thing to watch! Are the times that bad that they’re this desensitized to death?
Also, I do wish that your reputation instilled fear in lower-level enemies. Given that you’re supposed to be becoming well known, and it’s talked about how you’ve gained reputation frequently, you’d think that some enemies wouldn’t want the smoke.
Even something like having a lower-level enemy run away after you’ve taken out a couple of his comrades would be better than nothing. But so far, there’s none of that. Even if you’re 10+ levels ahead, and have a high percentage of reputation in the area, they still charge on.
Other than those couple of small things, it seems as though each character was deliberately made, and that’s refreshing. Instead of towns populated by randomly generated filler-people. Each person has a name, and with a couple of exceptions, I could talk to everyone. They’re talked about and referenced as though they’re real people, too. And you might see a person you helped pop up back at the homestead.
Overall, while there’s room for improvement, I think the choices that they made with the NPCs and how they react to you were great. I’m looking forward to continuing my adventure and meeting new people, and honestly a lot of the kinks could be ironed out with an update.
…Something Keeps Pulling Me Back
I mentioned earlier that some of the movement complications that I have could potentially be solved with unlocking skills in the skill tree, and I think that’s another thing that’s pulling me back. Eventually, I’ll be the ultimate assassin, invisible in the bushes, attacking from above, not missing any shots, and just feeling like an all-around badass with the people backing me up. Not quite being there yet, though, but seeing the path is keeping me locked in to the grind.
Speaking of, I’m also enjoying saving the townsfolk and fighting against the tyranny plaguing this land. I was awed when I found myself in a new town and found a woman about to be hanged. I had to save her by shooting the rope with my bow, and taking out the people trying to kill her. It was awesome, and I actually felt like I was making a difference in this world.
Funny side story — the first time I completed this mission was early-enough on that I hadn’t quite figured out when and how the game saved. I died shortly after and unfortunately it had saved at a point before I saved this woman. So I had to do it again. The second time, though, I missed and accidentally hit her and failed! I wasn’t sure if the game would allow that because the spot where you have to hit the rope is pretty tight; but it did, and I appreciated the realism. Of course, I reloaded the save, I couldn’t kill that poor woman.
Another pleasant surprise in this game was when I came across my first puzzle. Sprinkled throughout the world are various puzzles that you can solve for some pretty rare rewards. There’s not explanations for the puzzles, you just have to figure them out. Though, there’s often clues nearby to help you solve them.
There’s a few different types of puzzle types, too. From pressing buttons in a certain sequence, to finding which symbols go in the correct places. There’s even a music-based puzzle, which is pretty cool and unique. I never expected these types of puzzles when I first started the game, and it’s another thing that’s keeping this game fun, refreshing and keeping me playing.
Overall, despite the quite frustrating mechanics, I’m genuinely enjoying Robin Hood: Sherwood Builders. I really feel like I’m helping the people, and I can’t wait to see what else is in store. There’s posters about some sort of arena, and I came across a Blood Cairn where apparently I’ll be fighting for money. And who knows what else is out there that I haven’t come across yet!
Have any of you played it? Let me know in the comments what you think about it, and if you’re enjoying it as much as I am. Peace out, I’m about to go play right now.