Crossedland

Crossedland is an action RPG in which an alien civilization watches you on television, studying and judging your actions. You teleport into arenas to fight, gather resources, hunt and loot, then return to your personal island to rest and rebuild. Progress through the ranks to earn rewards; reaching Grand Champion grants you a single wish.

Arenas and combat

Arenas range from sprawling areas across several biomes, where you gather resources among enemies, to cramped combat spaces where you focus on defeating your opponents. Gameshows also appear, with challenges ranging from easy to complete to extremely difficult and rewards to match. Arena time limits bring different dangers: some mean instant death, while others trigger deadly robots, landscape-sweeping lasers, invisible hunters or orbital bombardments. Meteor showers, lightning strikes and gravity anomalies are among the other hazards.

Combat is methodical at times and fast-paced at others, and careless play can be dangerous. Enemies, especially humanoid ones, can be deadly at most levels. If you die in an arena, you lose everything you gathered there. You can also find coordinates to boss locations; defeating these powerful enemies earns parts for upgrades and is necessary to advance to their rank.

Weapons and skills

You can find or craft over 100 weapons, which shape your fighting style. The game has 18 styles, covering weapons such as one-handed swords, quick thrusting weapons, polearms, slow two-handed weapons and bows. There are 20 skills to raise, including skills for most weapon styles, gathering and crafting, as well as athletics and other areas. Skills improve through use: higher levels increase damage, gathering speed and crafting quality.

Reaching certain skill levels unlocks abilities from a total of 32. These include stat boosts, instant gathering and a chance to kill enemies instantly with a headshot. You can also bring found tech back to Vex, who turns it into upgrades. There are currently 11 upgrades to unlock, including blink and double jump.

Rebuild your island

You can bring people you find back to the island and rebuild the ruins of its former community. Finding the right people and materials lets you complete buildings and create a personal town; each finished building unlocks recipes, tech, further buildings or other features. You can also place custom buildings anywhere on the island, or use blueprints to set up prefabricated houses.

The island offers over 100 pieces of furniture to find, craft and place. You can also grow ingredients on your farm and decorate as much or as little as you like.

Crafting and food

Hundreds of crafting recipes cover weapon upgrades, fire enhancements, armor, buff-providing food and furniture. Some meal recipes must be found or bought in the world; many are learned automatically by picking up their ingredients. Weapons and armor can be upgraded with the right recipe and materials, and some islanders can craft gadgets such as grenades that gather materials instantly or emergency escape portals for leaving an arena quickly.

Prepared food boosts stats and regeneration, making it especially important in arenas at lower levels. The game advises eating before entering an arena.