Haven Reviews
Built for local co-op with a significant other in mind, Haven is a pleasant experience with some severe narrative downfalls.
Haven presents a lush alien world, one rife with resource gathering and loaded with turn-based combat, as a suitable venue for its forbidden love story. Such an unorthodox collection of disparate elements may have had trouble connecting if not held together by widely relatable and sharply written interpersonal dialogue. It's an assembly that allows its pair protagonists to thrive inside moments of tedium, suggesting a story worth telling takes precedent over action not always worth doing.
What Haven doesn't quite perfect in its gameplay, it makes up for with a beautifully crafted, surprisingly human relationship, accompanied by a brilliant soundtrack and gorgeous presentation.
It won’t really make any game of the year lists, but that doesn’t mean that Haven should be forgotten. If anything, it’s the game I’ve played in 2020 that without a doubt has the most heart in its writing and characters. That’s saying a lot, considering some of the heavy hitters to come out this year.
Haven is a special game that is hard to recommend, but hard to miss. If you want a good honest look at star crossed lovers, and you have someone to play it with, definitely consider dropping some time into this lovely world.
Traverse a fragmented alien world as a lovestruck couple and hunt down answers to the mysteries surrounding you in Haven, new from the developers of FURI. As you explore the planet and follow this mature and honest portrayal of their romantic relationship, do you have it in you to help them take control of their own destiny and protect each other from the sinister forces of the Apiary?
Lovers in a Shattered Land
Haven has good premises and touch of freshness as it strives to convey humanity, even though most of its mechanics and plot would've deserved more deepening
Review in Italian | Read full review
Haven is slow-paced, but it’s beautiful and captivating. If you want something to enjoy while tucked under a warm blanket, this might just be the comfort you need.
Something that isn't there to satisfy people that ship in-game characters or gives them additional stats, but two characters that live together and struggle together. They each have a complete personality and to see that flourish, to see them flourish together, is something I have rarely if ever experienced in a game. Haven is not perfect, certainly not on Switch, but I would follow these characters to the edge of space and beyond.
The best description for Haven would be that of a game developed by a very talented team of people, who dreamed big, but had a budget that was simply not enough, as the concept can even scare larger, more experienced studios. Due to all that, it feels as if stuck in the second chapter of a much, much larger game. Its alien world is beautiful, the gameplay is far from bad, and the way this focuses in the protagonist duo and their romantic relationship is pulled off quite well (for the most part), but in the end, the severe lack of content, as well as challenge, soon turns this into a repetitive, and painfully boring chore.
Such an offensive slap to all fans of the original game and to all gamers in general.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Haven is a cute and enjoyable mix of light survival, light RPG, and serious romance novel. It's exactly the kind of game to play if you want to relax for a few hours and see adorable people being adorable. The surprisingly enjoyable RPG combat and gentle survival mechanics make the game feel more like a game, while at heart it is closer to a visual novel. If you like warm and fuzzy feelings, Haven is a great choice, as long as you don't mind the occasional risqué dialogue.
Haven is a different and unique experience as a game with a sci-fi theme. You will play as a pair of lovers and follow their adventures in " Source " planet. Combat system could be better and sometimes, you might feel that the most parts of the world look same, but except from these, Haven is an enjoyable, different and recommended experience that takes you to a beautiful journey of love.
Review in Persian | Read full review
While the journey to survive in Source is interesting and the gameplay brings fun yet repetitive things, Haven really does a spectacular job of telling its story, raising every little moment, from combat to gliding while holding hands, moved by the strength of its script, voice-acting and love between its protagonists.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Haven presents you with one challenge after another in a dreamlike, audiovisually beautiful world where you'll spend dozens of hours unraveling all its hidden corners and contents. The blemish on an otherwise great title is the less well-handled co-op, rather sporadic hitches and feelings of stereotype for a certain variety of players. The romantically-themed story suits the younger generation more, but even a boomer like me enjoyed it to the fullest.
Review in Czech | Read full review
Haven respects your time, and encourages healthy couple gaming.
While a great story in a game isn’t usually quite enough to singularly make its purchase a must, it can help to elevate a title beyond other elements that are more lacking...
Haven is a game that attracted my attention because of its story and dialogues but it is a clear indication of the struggles that face the indie devs even though the game is ambitious and tries to mix RPG elements, survival, and even visual novels style of storytelling but eventually the game reached the limit of the devs capabilities, the fights were scarce and almost non-existent, the worlds were repetitive which makes it like many ambitious games that didn't its ambition so, in the end, the result was a game that is wasn't convincing to itself let alone convincing the gamers.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
A light-hearted story about a blooming relationship on an unknown planet surrounded by mysteries.