Meltopia Review

For some reason (explained later), you've moved into a mansion called Meltopia, where you discover a Meltgun, AKA a flamethrower, amongst the ice and snow inside. This leads you to start melting your way through the labyrinth of tunnels beneath your feet, aided by a mechanical construct which seems happy to sell you upgrades in exchange for junk. This is Meltopia.

As you explore, you find thousands of random items such as bottles, broken cogs, and empty fuel cans frozen in the ice. Once your pockets are stuffed, you can either sell the junk directly to the robot or shove it into a bin to cash out automatically. While fuel for your Meltgun is free, upgrades to your equipment are most certainly not, with prices starting low before going dramatically higher.

This means that you're never advancing too quickly, especially as you'll soon fill your new backpack expansion and have to run to deposit stuff multiple times as you slowly save up to get the next one. Meanwhile, you're trying to afford the next fuel tank and a better coat to avoid freezing…

Progress is slow, but it's also steady, as it's not as if you're left struggling to find junk for the next upgrade. Sometimes I'd run out of pocket space, but still have plenty of fuel left, so I'd just continue melting my way towards the next open area. Then, upon returning from a refuel, I'd have to turn around almost immediately because of everything scattered around the floor.

At one point, you get a grappling hook, which helps you get around quickly if you aim it low or access more areas if you aim it high. While the range has a limit, it's still enough to help immensely, especially when you're about to freeze and need to reach a source of warmth.

My one issue with Meltopia is the loading times. Or, to be more accurate, the saving times, because whenever you save the game, it takes about 10 seconds where everything freezes (ironically). If you have autosave enabled, it warns you a few seconds before it saves, and when you're able to resume control, your warmth meter has decreased, and if you were melting the general area in front of you, it has vanished. Junk remains in its place, so if you want to pick it up, you need to give a quick spray of fire at it.

The worst thing is that after it saves, a message confirms that it's done, and a second message reminds you that you can disable autosave. So, this is working as intended, and developer Garden of Dreams thinks you should just deactivate it. I get that this is probably a side effect of the main game mechanic being "player alters the level, remember how it was altered", but there must be a better (faster) way to do it.

As well as the Meltgun, you find a Teslagun which melts a different material to the usual snow, and a shovel for shifting dirt. You can also buy dynamite to remove blockages, fuel canisters for emergency refills, and lights to drop around the place. Those only last a certain amount of time, but at least they're cheap to purchase.

A recent update brought in an Expedition Generator, which procedurally generates levels, giving the game a lot of replay value once you're done with the main game. That took me almost eight hours, so there is value for money here.

Apart from the worry about hypothermia, Meltopia is a pretty chill game where you're just expected to melt snow, find frozen artefacts, and get not much story until the end. But the level design is decent, and the snow is pretty.