Lou’s Lagoon review – A cosy adventure of discovery and crafting

I’m all for cosy adventure games, but sometimes they can feel just a bit too twee. Lou’s Lagoon, out this week on PC and consoles, gets the balance just right. You’re never in danger. You’re never forced to rush or do a specific quest if you don’t want to. Heck, it doesn’t even hold your hand, trusting you to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing to progress. If you like adventure, crafting and the freedom to play however you want, then, there’s a very good chance you’ll love Lou’s Lagoon.

It begins with a storm. Your uncle Lou, a pilot, has gone missing. You’ll need to find him, but first that means repairing a broken plane and getting equipped with the tools you’ll need for the job. The first hour or two of Lou’s Lagoon is pretty prescriptive, then, moving from one mission to another. But once you’ve nailed the basics, this wonderful crafting adventure opens up, allowing you to choose between focusing on the main story or spending some time on side activities.

Much of your time with Lou’s Lagoon will be spent gathering resources. Your handy tool, called a Swirler, lets you quickly pick up any number of materials. Whether you’re pulling fruit off a tree or gathering scrap metal and driftwood from the beach, holding down the right trigger will see it fly – quite literally – straight into your inventory. Most missions require some kind of crafting, so you’ll want to gather as many materials as you can. Within reason, of course – you’ve got limited inventory space, so you’ll need to think carefully about what you do and don’t need.

Your Swirler can be upgraded over time to allow you to gather different materials, and other tools allowing for different kinds of gathering can be crafted, too. A fishing rod will allow you to grab creatures and materials from the water, while a Scooper allows you to easily find underground objects. The materials you find can also be upgraded using a number of special machines: the Refiner can change driftwood and scrap metal into useful pieces of wood and metal, amongst others, and a Manufacturer can make more electronic-focused components such as cables and microchips, which you’ll need for more advanced crafting later on in the game.

It’s not all crafting, though. You’ll also spend plenty of time exploring, figuring out how to get to hard-to-reach areas (unlocking and upgrading a gliding tool will help!), finding hidden treasure chests and, of course, flying that plane you helped fix up at the beginning of the game. It’s a shame that eventually you’ll be able to fast-travel to most of the areas you need to get to, but flying around the small but perfectly formed archipelago of Lou’s Lagoon is fun while it lasts. There’s even time for a number of air-based missions, where you’ll be tasked with flying through a series of hoops against the clock.

All of that goes to say that there’s quite a lot to do here. This wholesome adventure will take you roughly 10-12 hours if you simply focus on the main story, but you can easily double your time with the game if you choose to absorb yourself in everything Lou’s Lagoon has to offer. And honestly, you’d be remiss if you didn’t. Additional missions task you with helping out the people living across the archipelago – whether you’re unsticking them from mysterious piles of black goo, crafting something useful for them or merely delivering a message, there’s plenty to get your teeth stuck into.

Beyond all this, Lou’s Lagoon also has a creative crafting element that allows you to build your own house. A small plot of land on Lou’s Island is given to you at the beginning of the game, upon which you can build whatever you desire. You can ignore this part of the game completely if you wish, but if you do have a bit of a creative streak, it’s a great way to put your own stamp on the experience.

I mentioned before that Lou’s Lagoon doesn’t hold your hand beyond the first set of missions in the game. For the most part, I’ve loved that element – it feels very freeing to be able to do what you want. But there have been a few times where it’s been unclear which missions are secondary and which will actually push the story forward. Often, it’s down to you to figure out if you need to upgrade a tool or unlock something new in order to move forward, so it would have been nice to have a bit of in-game guidance on the odd occasion. Maybe a wise old character who can nudge you in the right direction?

It’s not a deal-breaker, of course; being trusted with your own destiny in a video game is a privilege. But it is a little annoying to have found you’ve spent nearly an hour gathering materials for a certain quest that turns out not to be mandatory in pushing the story forward.

Still, I’ve loved my time with Lou’s Lagoon, and even though I’ve finished the main campaign and a lot of the side missions, I’m keen to keep playing, finishing everything up and spending some time building my very own house. With everything wrapped up and all the adventuring done, my character deserves to have somewhere nice to rest, don’t you think?