RuneScape: Dragonwilds' build mode is easily the best I've played since Valheim

There are two types of survival crafting players in every friend group: the 'go kill things in a cave to supply the crew' people and the 'build the aesthetically pleasing base for everyone to live in' people. Because I am one of the latter, the first thing I have noticed about RuneScape: Dragonwilds as it surprise-launched today is that it is incredibly good for us base-building little gremlins.

Every survival game begins with erecting a barebones wooden box to call your own, but Dragonwilds makes even that feel pretty slick right from the jump. Not only do pieces just snap together nicely, but they rotate around the vertical axis easily so you can build your little house facing just about any direction you please, not only in four cardinal directions.

After that you'll notice that you can hold Ctrl to raise and lower pieces at will or turn off snapping mode altogether. It's shockingly smooth. I built a tiny little loft nook in my very first little home just by raising up a floor platform piece above the foundation I'd built, slapping some stairs on the side of it, and enclosing it with walls I lowered manually. That's already so much more stylish than what 99% of other survival crafting games allow.

When you build yourself a proper crafting table, the real artistry begins. I'm just going to rattle off a little list of building pieces here that will mean nothing to the 'fight stuff in caves' friends but will make my fellow building freaks salivate:

• Two different roof pitches (45° and 30°)
• Half walls
• Snapping mode toggle
• Roof valley pieces
• Inverted triangle wall pieces
• Double doors (the luxury!)

I know it sounds niche, but roof valley pieces for joining two perpendicular gabled roofs is the most overlooked but fundamentally important part of a building system. It even includes three different roof section lengths and small triangular wall pieces so that you don't have to conform to the old laws of 'is this an even tiles or odd tiles build system' problem. It's both—spot me mixing a two-wide loft with a three-wide main structure in my first build. Dragonwilds just gets me.

Early access survival crafting games are a micro genre unto themselves at this point and one thing you can usually expect is for the provided building tiles to be the minimum viable set needed to construct a box with a roof on it. The niceties of pretty bases are more of a future roadmap feature, more often than not. Dragonwilds clearly didn't forget about me and my building freaks though; I haven't eaten this good as a base-building player since Valheim.

That's another feature Dragonwilds has folded in, by the by: a structural integrity system reminiscent of Valheim's. I'm only a couple hours in at the moment, so I've not yet stretched the limits of building safety but even my modest little roof cap has a yellow warning as I snap it into place letting me know that it could really use some supports. I'll be digging into that pillars and beams category of the build system next.

As things get more complicated I'm looking forward to digging into the edge cases of what Dragonwilds allows. It even supports my building needs with its magical skills system. After just a bit of work I've unlocked a skill that allows me to fly around free-cam style while building to snap pieces into those tough-to-reach spots without actually having to scale the roof of my structure and risk falling off.

RuneScape: Dragonwilds surprise-launched into early access today. Between the dragon fights it promises for my combat-focused friends and the obviously excellent initial building mode for us homemakers, I don't think I'm going to struggle to lure my usual survivalcraft crew into this one.