Chinese fantasy farming sim ‘Immortal Life’ adds trauma bonding to pastoral ideal, and I love it from Mashable

Few farming simulators start by obliterating hundreds of people via giant meteor. However, that number is not zero. Introducing: Immortal Life.

Immortal Life cultivates more than a pastoral fantasy

Developed by YiFang Studio, Immortal Life initially stands out from other farming simulators due to its unique xianxia setting. Fortunately, while C-drama fans will have fun spotting common tropes, you don’t have to be familiar with the Chinese fantasy genre to enjoy this game. Once you’ve jumped in, all the much loved farming sim activities such as fishing, mining, foraging, and planting crops quickly present themselves, albeit infused with supernatural Chinese elements.

Where Immortal Life truly distinguishes itself is by immediately trauma bonding you to the local townsfolk.

Immortal Life begins the same way as Story of Seasons, Stardew Valley, and indeed most other games in the farming sim genre: You moving to a small, abandoned farm with the intent to revive it. In that respect, it seems fairly standard. What isn’t standard is the freak disaster that completely destroys the local Taoist sect mere moments after you arrive, killing almost everyone in it.

This surprise smiting quickly establishes a sense of community and camaraderie, directing your focus toward helping your fellow survivors. Then after the initial crisis, the destruction gives your agricultural efforts a clear purpose. At first it’s simply to feed your new companions, as all of the sect’s resources were pulverised in the disaster. Then it’s to earn enough to rebuild.

Rather than simply selling enough bok choy to become a billionaire, Immortal Life offers you a greater objective. You aren’t merely running a business — you’re building a home. 

Farming is important, but so are friends and feasts

Pastoral fantasies aren’t just about growing vegetables. A quiet life watering potatoes and keeping bees does have its appeal, particularly when contemplated in the blue-light glow of a company-issued laptop. Still, man cannot live by freshly baked sourdough bread alone. For many, the cottagecore daydream is also about sharing your homemade meals with others.

Fortunately, Immortal Life has a mechanic for throwing dinner parties.

Immortal Life is populated by friendly, beautifully illustrated characters with distinct personalities, most of whom will quickly endear themselves to you as you fill up their friendship hearts. (Not all, though. I’ve had more than enough of self-proclaimed genius inventor Wei Hong’s shenanigans.) This bonding is significantly helped by the fact that, unlike your followers in Cult of the Lamb, your newfound companions are actually useful.

In a welcome contrast to the average farming sim local, who is happy to wait for a hero while their town languishes, Immortal Life‘s sect members won’t leave the work of reviving it all to you. They also utilise their own unique skills to help, whether that’s by establishing a workshop to coordinate reconstruction, journeying to find new trade routes, or opening a shop to improve the sect’s financial position. There’s a sense that you’re all on the same team, working together towards a common goal. 

The sect even gives you a generous stipend at the beginning of every season to assist your efforts. It’s just the right amount of communism.

You can’t hide on your farm forever, and you won’t want to

Immortal Life further integrates you into the local community through its gameplay. I was initially nonplussed by the absence of a shipping container on my farm, a farming sim stalwart which players typically use to sell their crops. However, I soon realised that having to offload my produce at a store meant I was forced to actually go into town, preventing me from becoming a complete farm hermit.

In doing so, I began to notice people’s routines and stumble upon side quests, whether selected from those pinned to the town bulletin board or picked up from townsfolk sporting exclamation marks above their heads. This made me feel more connected to the town, as though I was becoming part of the community. 

Another ingenious element are Immortal Life‘s paper cranes. This being ancient fantasy China, mobile phones aren’t around quite yet. Instead, one of your fellow cultivators develops magical paper cranes that are capable of flying messages to others. It’s a small thing, but receiving letters and gifts wherever you are throughout the day makes the world seem more alive, and contributes to the feeling that it’s a living community that cares for each other. 

Immortal Life upgrades the farming sim experience

Immortal Life has a significant main plotline, one which I’ve still not completed despite having racked up almost 100 hours in-game. The game cleverly spreads out the introduction of new areas and gameplay elements across this questline, constantly luring players back with the promise of new discoveries to unlock and explore. This, the xianxia setting, and trauma bonding would already be more than enough to distinguish Immortal Life from its peers. 

However, the farming simulator also identifies and addresses a plethora of genre tropes that frequently cause irritation in other such games.

Immortal Life doesn’t make you pass out if you stay up too late or run out of stamina, eliminating the daily race back to your bed. Your watering gourd never needs to be refilled, and allows you to briefly summon an efficient rain cloud. Rather than dotting your farm with dozens of storage chests, you can construct one large warehouse with upgradable storage capacity. The game even allows you to access your storage from floating crystals dotted throughout the world, so you don’t need to run all the way home whenever you forget an item.

Cooking is also more involved than farming sim fans may expect, requiring you to rush around a kitchen in a minigame similar to a single-player Overcooked. It feels much more satisfying than simply selecting a recipe in a menu, and certainly had me pondering how to make these dishes in real life. It doesn’t get too repetitive either, as you can choose to bypass the minigame once you’ve three-starred a recipe.

There’s a focus on education as well, fitting the theme of personal cultivation. Taking classes at the rebuilt Lecture Hall can increase your stats and improve your combat skills, with mining in Immortal Life‘s dungeons secondary to firing spells at lizards, bats, and spitting plants. The game’s combat system is a relatively rudimentary top-down shooter that is ridiculously easy to cheese, a fact which I love and consider a feature rather than a bug. Even so, it’s still a reasonably advanced combat system by farming sim standards, complete with an elemental spell system.

I do wish Immortal Life would let you raise animals, as buying meat and eggs from the local grocer is not in line with my self-sustainable goals. Their exclusion is understandable considering that dairy isn’t terribly prevalent in Chinese cooking, and rearing animals for slaughter would decidedly shatter the game’s friendly atmosphere. Still, I’d at least like to be able to collect my own eggs so I don’t have to buy fresh ones simply to preserve them.

Returning to the roots of why we farm

Farming simulators are tried and true cosy game stalwarts. From Story of Seasons to Stardew Valley to Coral Island, these games allow players to indulge their pastoral fantasies of owning a farm, befriending their neighbours, and finally escaping the corporate rat race. Yet despite their comforting vibes, farming sims are often unable to escape the trappings of capitalism. 

Immortal Life isn’t necessarily a complete exception, still requiring you to sell your crops for spirit stones and partake in general commerce. Still, capitalism’s cold steel grip feels a bit looser in the mountains of China. Rather than gathering wealth for its own sake there’s a wider goal to aim for, one that others are working toward with you.

Usually farming sims have me primarily focused on tending my field and upgrading my tools which, while engaging, can begin to feel cyclic and rote by the first winter. Immortal Life has me just as invested in helping my sect and nurturing friendships alongside my crops. The game emphasises the importance of community, luring the player into town and reminding them that there’s a rich world outside crop cycling. 

Though it’s different from so many other farming sims, at its heart Immortal Life takes us back to the root of the pastoral fantasy. While cultivating the land is a significant draw, Immortal Life understands that the appeal of absconding to the countryside isn’t just in growing vegetables. It’s equally important to cultivate relationships, a community, and yourself.

Immortal Life is currently available on PC.