Smalland: Survive the Wilds landed on Nintendo Switch 2 via the eShop on May 14, 2026, bringing its miniature open-world survival experience to a new platform. Developed and published by Maximum Entertainment, the game puts you in the boots of the Smallfolk, a tiny civilization reclaiming a massive, hostile outdoor world after centuries underground. You craft gear, tame insects, build bases, and survive storms, all from the perspective of something about the size of a grasshopper.
What is Smalland: Survive the Wilds?
The game originally launched in Early Access on PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store on March 29, 2023. A full release followed on February 15, 2024, across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC. The Switch 2 version, announced by Maximum Entertainment in May 2026, is the latest platform addition and the first time the game is available on a Nintendo console.
The core premise is survival at a miniature scale. Trees become skyscrapers. Cracks in the earth become caverns. Dense undergrowth becomes a forest you can get genuinely lost in. The world is physically the same outdoor environment, but your size reframes every single element of it.
For fans of action games with survival mechanics layered on top, Smalland sits in a satisfying middle ground between exploration-heavy crafting games and creature-based combat.
What are the key features on Switch 2?
The Switch 2 version carries the full feature set from the console and PC releases. Here's a breakdown of the main pillars:
Your Great Tree base transfers between servers, so time invested in your settlement is never lost when you join a friend's world.
Base material progression tiers
How does survival work in Smalland?
Survival in Smalland runs on a few interconnected systems. The weather is not decorative. Lethal storms can kill you if you're caught unprepared, and changing seasons require you to adapt your approach rather than settle into a single routine. According to Maximum Entertainment's official description, the dynamic weather and random events are designed to organically create a living environment rather than a static backdrop.
Resource gathering feeds directly into construction and gear crafting. You scavenge raw materials or refine them into higher-tier components, then use those to build encampments or upgrade your armor. The armor system is worth paying attention to early: pieces provide specific resistances and abilities rather than just raw defense stats, so mixing and matching sets lets you tune your loadout to whatever threats you're currently facing.
Adding wings to your armor opens up aerial traversal, while the grappling hook lets you swing between trees. Both change how you navigate the world significantly once you unlock them.
Lethal storms can kill you without proper shelter or resistances. Build a base and check your armor's weather resistances before venturing far from spawn.
How does creature taming work?
Taming is one of the most distinctive systems in the game. You can tame and mount grasshoppers for long jumps, birds for treetop flight, and spiders for moving through dense undergrowth. Each mount type offers a different movement style suited to different terrain, so having multiple options available expands where you can realistically explore and how fast you can do it.
Fighting creatures is also part of progression. The world's insects and wildlife are not passive, and combat feeds into the resource loop through drops used for crafting.
Grasshopper mount in the wild
Is co-op worth playing with friends?
The multiplayer cap of 10 players puts Smalland in a different category from most survival games, which typically cap at 4 or 8. A group of 10 can split roles meaningfully: some players handle base construction while others focus on exploration, resource runs, or creature taming. The game explicitly supports this with its warrior-or-builder progression framing.
The Great Tree base system is particularly useful in co-op. Because your base carries over to new servers, a group can invest in a shared settlement without worrying about losing it when someone hosts a different session.
Smalland supports narrative quests and NPC encounters that reveal Smallfolk lore, giving co-op sessions a story thread to follow alongside the survival loop.
What platforms can you play Smalland on?
As of May 2026, Smalland: Survive the Wilds is available on:
- PC (Steam and Epic Games Store, Early Access from March 29, 2023)
- PlayStation 5 (full release February 15, 2024)
- Xbox Series (full release February 15, 2024)
- Nintendo Switch 2 (eShop launch May 14, 2026)
Switch 2 eShop release
Where can you find more guides?
The Switch 2 launch makes this a good time to get into Smalland if you've been waiting for a portable version. The survival loop has enough depth to reward time spent learning its systems, and 10-player co-op gives it a social ceiling that most games in the genre don't reach.
For deeper strategy on crafting, combat, and base building, the Smalland: Survive the Wilds strategy guides collection covers the mechanics you'll want to understand before you hit your first lethal storm.