Grimshire Early Access Review: A Cozy Farming Sim Where Survival Comes First

At first glance, Grimshire looks like a familiar comfort game with tidy fields, hand-tended crops, and a quiet village tucked away from the rest of the world… but behind its soft, storybook-like façade is a farming sim that tasks you with the survival of everyone you know.

In Grimshire, your harvest isn’t about profit or perfection but rather about survival.

A deadly plague stalks the Capital and beyond, turning the anthropomorphic, friendly animals over yonder into feral beasts. As a result of this, you find yourself rescued to this quaint mountain village. It’s now upon you to carefully select crops to plant, expand your little farm, and provide for the village. Every decision feels weighty – or at least, the game wants it to feel that way. Everyone has to do their part, and you’re the sole farmer now.

I really fell in love with the grim outlook the game provides and the intense yet serene atmosphere you experience, but after spending a good amount of time in the game, I started to wonder whether all is as it seems.

Developer: Acute Owl Studio
Publisher: Acute Owl Studio
Genre: Indie, 2D, Farming Sim, Life Sim
Release Date: July 22nd, 2025
Reviewed on: PC
Available on: PC
Copy was purchased.

With the Capital in flames, you’re brought back by Finn, a local merchant, alongside a severely injured survivor of the chaos. After getting treated by Grimshire’s town doctor, you’re tasked with taking care of the only fertile piece of land in the village – the old abandoned farm – and providing food for the root cellar so that the population can survive. The other survivor, however, didn’t make it, hence setting the tone for the rest of the game. “Death is a reality in this game, and depending on our choices, not everyone might make it”, the game basically tells you.

When you start your game, you select one of the available races of anthropomorphic animals, each coming with their own race-specific feature. On top of that, you get to select a profession that grants you a skill to start with.

I started playing as a merchant rabbit. As an herbivore, I got more stamina from plants but less from meat dishes. As a rabbit, I had a higher chance of getting better yields from harvests. The merchant background seemed like a good pick, too, since selling goods yielded higher profits and buying goods cost less money, which surely would add up over time. The good thing here, though, is that you can get the profession-specific skills unlocked over time, too. So, there’s no “bad start” or anything. It’s down to preference, really.

As you perform tasks, you’ll earn experience, each granting you a skill point. You cannot grab all the skills in the game, adding another layer of playstyle customization and depth to the game. What I did notice, however, was that some skills will unlock only decorations while others feel like real game changers.

As much as Grimshire is about survival, it is also a game of routines and preservation.

Each day, the village requires a daily ration of food. Since herbivores and carnivores are living in the village together, you’ll need to provide different foods to the root cellar based on their needs, from mushrooms, fruits, nuts and vegetables to fish, meat and preserved foods. If you have too little meat stocked up, then the carnivores will take from the herbivore stockpile at a less efficient rate, and vice versa, so you’ll have to make sure that you get into ranching and farm-expansion as soon as possible, as bottlenecks are sure to come your way.

At the end of the day, the villagers will also provide various goods they get to the root cellar, of course, but overall, your farm is the main source of foodstuffs, meaning you’ll have to expand your fields, set up ranches, go fishing, as well as do some foraging to make sure you’ll get through the year just fine. In return, you’ll receive some money when you meet rations, and you’re exempt from paying taxes, so that’s something.

Simply providing crops, however, isn’t all there is to the game, especially since food will expire over time. Because of this, setting up drying racks and other preservation stations to dry, smoke, salt or pickle the various goods you have becomes incredibly important. Drying crops and fish typically extends their shelf life to twenty days. Other means of preservation are unlocked over time via research (donating items to the museum), each method severely increasing the shelf life of your foods, if not even extending it indefinitely.

Hence, the core gameplay loop doesn’t simply consist of fishing, ranching, farming and preserving as you might know it from other games. Grimshire is very much about careful preparation of the various goods in order to ensure the survival of everyone in the village!

With limited time and energy in the day, you’ll have to carefully draw up your plans, so that you get as much done as possible.

Spread across the village, there are plenty of different fishing spots, berry bushes and trees that might be of use to you. Because of this, you inevitably start creating a routine.

Personally, I really enjoyed this aspect of the game: “Water the fields, put more items onto drying racks, donate food to the root cellar, go fishing and foraging, donate to the collection, visit Gruff to upgrade tools, and return back home to clear out more land”, for instance, became sort of a common schedule for me, but with various villagers having requests to deal with, you’re kind of always adapting to various changes in that same routine. Travelling salesman problem much?

Eventually, though, I realised a dire issue with it: I need money for upgrades and the various ranching buildings. I also need various stones, ores and other goods to install an irrigation system on my fields.

Thus, progression quickly becomes mining-focused. Farming starts to feel secondary, which I believe is not good in a farming sim.

Beyond crafting, upgrading and various extra buildings, you also need some expensive resources to complete the “Town Quests” that the game throws your way. They are curveballs, so to speak, with additional challenges that come as time goes on. You may need certain resources you only get through ranching or mining… and a lot of those, at that. The village provides a certain amount to these as well, but you can’t simply rely on them since dire consequences follow a failure to meet the deadline.

So, you just sort of have to head into the various mines with enough stamina and/or food to gather iron, tin, nickel, and other ores, as well as the coal to smelt them. This process costs a lot of resources, and those resources you end up needing for a lot of different processes, which severely hampers how much “farming” you actually end up doing.

With how many ores you need and how many bars you have to give away to town quests, it at times feels a bit daunting and stressful, which can be intimidating and unenjoyable even at times. I definitely hope that the game works on the balance of things a bit more. There is a skill that reduces crafting costs, but I feel like it doesn’t do enough, as it only affects crafting things. The town quests and various buildings, however, remain unaffected.

With that being the case, you also inevitably will run into other issues, especially as the “Defender’s Ration” the Crown requires increases in the amounts required. If you play on “Grim”, the intended difficulty, or on “Challenge”, the hardest difficulty, it becomes incredibly difficult to meet these demands on top of the town quests as well as the regular rations required for the village, while also managing all the other tasks.

Luckily, reducing the difficulty is an option, at all times, and you can switch to “Gentle” or “Unsteady” difficulty when things get rough. I do recommend trying “Grim” difficulty, though, especially with the sense of urgency and dread you get. It’s very different from other games in the genre! The high jumps in the amount of rations you have to give away, though, really spike a bit too much, in my opinion, even on the intended difficulty.

The balance of the game will probably see adjustments over time, though, and I do still recommend the game. I have, however, one more issue with the game. Since it is a rather big spoiler that might ruin the experience for new players, though, you can skip ahead to the verdict instead. If you intend to play the game, I recommend that, honestly.

All that being said, though, Grimshire is still a very comfortable game that plays with the theme of starvation to provide a different kind of atmosphere. Dread, fear, stress, and danger… and yet serenity and comfort in a new world to explore and cultivate.

It’s still “cozy” due to its adorable art style, the lovely music, and the various story events that provide you with joy… but there’s a stark contrast that the two developers at Acute Owl Studios play with that makes this one of the most unique farming sims I’ve played in recent years.

The balance is a bit off in places, and the game also currently only features the first year in terms of fully implemented content, but with the next big update on the horizon, I’m positive that this could be a great addition to the library of farming sim fans who want a different experience in a somewhat oversaturated genre.

---

I definitely do recommend the game to lovers of the farming and life sim formula with the added caveat that the game is still in Early Access with more features planned for the future. In its current state, the game already features a great amount of content, so I do recommend giving it a try! That being said, I don't recommend making a purchase based on future content not yet implemented. I'll definitely follow up on this review in the future with update posts as well as an updated review once the game leaves Early Access.

This post was originally written by Dan Dicere from Indiecator.

If you see this article anywhere other than Indiecator.org then this article has been scraped. Please let me know about this via E-Mail.