$12.49 (−50%)Eastward A warm ride through a broken world
Travel the rails with an unlikely pair, brawl with a frying pan, cook odd meals and meet the strange souls left behind.
Is Eastward worth it?
Eastward is worth it if…
- you love gorgeous, hand-crafted pixel art and detailed little towns worth poking through
- you want a story-driven adventure with a warm, wacky sense of humour
- you enjoy old-school action RPGs with puzzles, dungeons and a relaxed pace
- you like cooking in games, especially with ingredients from toxic forests and potcrab farms
Screenshots
A duo on the rails
John is a hardworking miner. Sam is a young girl with powers nobody can explain. Together they slip out of Potcrock Isle, the underground settlement that wants to keep them in, and head for the surface. From there the journey runs on a cross-country railway that spans the continent: you stop at bustling towns, curious campsites and shady forests, each one falling apart in its own charming way. The world above is toxic and half-empty, but the people who stayed are a quirky, talkative bunch, and the towns they live in are packed with detail worth slowing down for. It is a road trip through the end of the world, one station at a time.
A frying pan and a kinetic blast
John's weapon of choice is, of all things, a frying pan, and he also carries a flamethrower and a cog-shooter for the bigger problems. Sam fights differently: her kinetic blast can stun monsters, which is handy when you would rather not fight at all. You switch between the two to get through dungeons, solving environmental puzzles and working around peculiar monsters and ferocious bosses. Sometimes the duo splits up to unlock hidden paths, sometimes they stick together through the perilous stretches. There is no dodge or dash here, so fights are about positioning and patience rather than reflexes. Come in expecting a steady, old-school action RPG, not a twitchy one.
What should you know before playing?
How heavy is the story compared to the action?
Story carries most of the game. Expect long stretches of dialogue and cutscenes between the dungeons and fights, and a plot that raises plenty of questions along the way. The story divides players: some find the characters and their journeys genuinely touching, others feel the ending leaves too much unexplained. If you play for characters and atmosphere over plot answers, it lands better.
What is the cooking for?
Cooking is one of the game's small joys. You gather (mostly) fresh, organic ingredients from toxic forests, potcrab farms and abandoned malls, then cook up Eastwardian dishes that grant health bonuses, power boosts and secret boons. The recipes are part of the fun: hunting down odd ingredients for a meal is a reward in itself, and the food you make keeps John and Sam going between stations.
How does it look and sound?
The pixel art is the thing people agree on most: every character sprite, item and town background is lovingly made, and no area looks bland. The music comes from Joel Corelitz, whose upbeat soundtrack bops along the whole journey, with sound design from Hyperduck Soundworks. Between the visuals, the music and the little details in every shop and room, the world feels crafted rather than assembled.
