Goliath

I kept thinking about the wood Goliath. That first lumbering robot you cobble together from forest scraps, jaw hinged like a friendly cartoon monster, glowing eyes peering out over a world that really has no business being this strange and lovely. For a few hours, Goliath from Siberian developer Whalebox Studio carries genuine wonder: a procedurally generated open world stitched from the ruins of a hundred dead civilisations, where 1930s Americana sits beside wrecked pirate galleons and far-future spacecraft, and warring factions of humans, sentient machines, demon-creatures, and the elusive Forest Folk vie for territory while enormous monsters stomp through it all. The core loop holds up better than its mixed reception suggests. You play as Gromov, a crash-landed pilot who is almost entirely defenceless on foot - a pistol and a cloaking ability are about all he offers the open world. Survival depends on gathering resources, blueprints, and then building one of dozens of Goliath suits from materials that actually matter. Wood Goliaths catch fire in hot zones; stone ones move faster across scorched terrain. Swapping between three equipped mechs mid-combat to match elemental hazards adds a quiet layer of tactical thinking the exterior loop does not advertise. There is also an overdrive bar that fills during fights and temporarily boosts your suit, and faction alignment shapes which unique weapon and robot plans you can access - meaning two playthroughs could favour noticeably different loadouts. The crafting itself earns genuine praise: it never feels like a grind wall, and the mix-and-match parts system gives the robots a hand-assembled personality that bigger studio mechs rarely manage. Where Goliath stumbles is almost everywhere the robots are not. Gromov is a cynical protagonist in a story that knows it is leaning on RPG tropes and winks at the player about it, but self-awareness is not a substitute for actual stakes. The map will not accept waypoints, the minimap routinely tries to route you through solid walls, and the inventory system - even post-patch - buckles under the volume of crafting materials the world throws at you. Controls feel designed for a controller first, and mouse-and-keyboard play can be genuinely cumbersome; the game will not tell you this upfront. Quest design also leans heavily on fetch loops: go to base, teleport to zone, report back, repeat. The audio is similarly uneven - the apocalyptic country-tinged soundtrack has its admirers, but mech footfalls lack weight, and the score has a habit of cutting out at odd moments. Visually, the cel-shaded top-down world has colour and confidence in its creature designs, though environmental textures lose detail up close and some biomes start feeling samey by the midgame. The writing is wry and occasionally funny - dialogue is text-only, which some players will find charming and others will find alienating. Whalebox, for their part, supported the game actively post-launch with updates and released the Summertime Gnarkness DLC as a free expansion for players at level 30 and above, which says something honest about where their priorities were. Sixty-one percent positive on Steam and a 57 on Metacritic is the honest landing zone for a game with a wonderful central idea that the execution only partially honours. If you find a copy at the right price, the mech-building alone is worth a few evenings. Go in wanting Don't Starve with giant robots and elemental combat, not a polished narrative RPG, and Goliath will give you most of what you came for. Manage the expectation gap and the wood Goliath will earn its place in your memory.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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