In the Warcraft universe, Goblins are basically venture capitalists: They’re shrewd traders and inventors who spend their lives striving to make as much money as possible, with very little regard for frivolous things like “safety regulations” and “treating employees with basic decency.” As far as Goblins are concerned, as long as their pockets remain lined, the ends justify the means. It seems the same is true in Goblin Company, developed and published by BitBorne Studio. In Goblin Company, you (and any friends you bring along) are goblin miners employed by WHAAG Mining Company (whose name is a cheeky Warhammer reference).

You start out with two main goals: Find the four lost goblin mining outposts and reconnect them via railroad tracks to the company’s home base, and harvest as many valuable crystals from the surrounding rock as possible while you do so. Before you get into the campaign proper, you have the option of going through the training camp to learn the basics of your job. The training camp teaches you how to use your drilling gun, how to place railroad tracks, how to use wooden carts you can place atop said railroad tracks, and how not to die on the job.

Other than that, you’re on your own. You’re expected to use the conveniently placed vending machine in your base to buy pretty much everything you’ll need to do your job other than your mining laser gun. That includes torches, railroad tracks, wooden carts, wooden platforms, and various potions that help you in different ways. You do that by bringing the crystals you mine back to base to use them as currency. For a good while when you start a new game, you won’t realistically be able to venture far from base, and you’ll have to return to base often.

That’s primarily because your starting backpack can only hold up to five crystals and because you’ll need to buy things frequently to venture farther away from base. Carts can hold several times more crystals than your backpack can, but they cost 20 pink crystals each. That means at least four trips back to base with a backpack full of crystals before you can buy a cart, not including the additional cost of rails upon which your carts can ride. At least you’ll be able to mine a decent amount of crystals right outside your base to get you started.

You have a good amount of freedom when it comes to laying down tracks, but you’ll still have to put some thought into doing so. When you’ve placed some tracks where you want them, you’ll then switch your mining gun into welding mode and shoot the tracks to weld them into place. You can hop into any cart you’ve placed onto tracks and ride in it, which is both fun and efficient to do. Of course, that’s assuming you had the forethought to place tracks in ways that avoid hazards, lest the cart tip over and send you flying out of it.

Goblins are terrified of the dark, which begs the question of why they became miners, but I digress. If you’re away from a light source for too long, you start to hallucinate so intensely that you take physical damage – and yes, you can die from those hallucinations. That’s why you’ll always want to carry torches with you, as well as any “darkness potions” you find. If you die, you’ll lose everything you had in your inventory unless you can safely reach and loot your corpse after you respawn. That’s rather morbid, but nothing I wouldn’t expect from goblins of this stereotype.

Goblin Company clearly places a heavy emphasis on co-op gameplay, which I’d say is a detriment for solo players like myself. Sure, you can play solo if you want to, but Goblin Company’s core gameplay loop is more tedious, more difficult, and overall much less fun if you don’t have any friends by your side in the mines. To be blunt, I’m surprised Goblin Company isn’t currently an early access game because there are quite a few aspects of it that look and feel unfinished, for lack of a better phrase. Menus and text boxes especially strike me as placeholders.

If you have a group of friends who are interested in Goblin Company and you’re confident you would all be able to play together often, Goblin Company might be worth checking out. Its $10 base price gives it a fairly low barrier to entry, at the very least. However, if you want to play a game in which you’re a high-fantasy race employed as a miner, especially if you’d rather play solo, there are better options available. If you’re looking for a more polished game of this ilk that better accommodates both solo and co-op play, I’d suggest Deep Rock Galactic instead.

A PC review copy of Goblin Company was provided by BitBorne Studio for the purposes of this review.

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Goblin Company

$9.99

4.5

Score

4.5/10

Pros

• Tutorials are decent enough.
• Gameplay is easier and more fun in co-op.

Cons

• Many aspects of the game look and feel unfinished.
• Core gameplay feels much less fun when playing solo.