Southfield, the cute and whimsical farming simulator by developer Radical Forge, recently had its closed beta on Steam and was a huge leap in quality from the demo.
I originally covered the Southfield demo back in February on Smash Jump when it was a part of the Steam Next Fest, and my first impressions were positive. I had a good time with what was featured in the demo, but I was pleasantly surprised by the great jump in polish that the closed beta exhibited compared to it.
Overview of the demo versus closed beta
To start, I would like to describe some of the differences between the demo and the closed beta. First, the title screen was completely revamped, as it now contains small animations along with the title, instead of being a still image. Past the title screen, there is also a new world creation section, which has three slots, whereas the demo didn’t have that option at all.
Once you start the game, you are greeted by the expanse of the world, along with a new intro cutscene, instead of the demo’s intro. I vastly prefer this intro to the game as it feels much less constricting than in the demo. The new tutorial factors into this feeling as well, where you are taught by exploring the area around you instead of in a square plot with an NPC.
In addition to the new tutorial area, the explanations accompanied by video demonstrations during the tutorial were revamped as well. Instead of smaller, more vertical pop-ups like in the demo the closed beta had bigger, more landscape sized pop-ups that had much better video explanations.
Another new addition was the crafting system, which is integrated into the tutorial. Your character has basic crafting abilities that expand once you build the game’s equivalent to a workstation. Lastly, the HUD was improved from the original demo.
If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it
Much of what I described above were all changes or additions that improved the game, but some of the fundamental systems that were good to begin with are still good. For example, rolling to move in the game still feels amazing, if not better. Along with that, the music and visuals are still whimsical and peaceful to match each other, and both still work perfectly in the world.
Farming at its core was also the same, but with the new tutorial it was much easier to get into. This in addition to all of the other mechanics that revolve around farming, such as selling your crops for the currency used in game.
Summary
Overall, the Southfield closed beta was a huge step up from the already solid demo. It improved on every aspect that I could have foreseen from the demo and made it a lot smoother of a game to play. Something that I thought of while playing is how this build seems much closer to a full game or the full release then the demo was.
Where the demo was an introduction to the world and mechanics, the closed beta was truly an expansion on those facets as well as being an overall more well rounded package. As I said in my original preview, I recommend anyone interested in a cute adventure to follow Southfield and see where it goes from here!
