Of Peaks and Tides Builds a Survival Sandbox Around Myth, Weather and Giant Beasts

Of Peaks and Tides is positioning itself as an open-world survival crafting game where the world is more than scenery or a container for resources. Developed by CyancookGames in Unreal Engine 5, the fantasy adventure takes inspiration from the mythology, landscapes and unusual creatures of ancient China. Its central ambition is to give players room to solve problems in unconventional ways, whether that means turning a blizzard into cover during a fight, hauling a built base across the map on the back of a tamed beast, or crafting a weapon from something that initially looks like a joke.

The game is planned for Steam on PC, where it can be wishlisted now. While a release date has not been announced, CyancookGames says it has spent the year since the game's initial reveal refining and expanding the project. The current version is said to feature more responsive environments, improved visual effects, broader environmental interaction and larger boss encounters. A recent two-day hands-on event in Shanghai also allowed more than 500 local players to try its newer systems and see material focused on crafting, natural disasters, and the game's road-and-bridge construction features.

A shattered world with gods at the centre

Of Peaks and Tides takes place in Everland, a large fantasy realm that was once linked to the gods. That connection was broken following a conflict between Heaven and Earth, leaving behind a fractured land and humanity without the divine protection it once knew. Players begin as one of the Nolands, awakening with little to their name and facing the familiar survival-game task of gathering supplies, creating shelter and pushing outward into dangerous territory.

There is a larger purpose beyond staying fed and building a safe home, however. Exploration will lead players toward the traces of lost civilizations and, eventually, a confrontation with the gods that left humanity behind. That premise gives the survival loop a mythic backdrop: individual expeditions for wood, food or rare materials are part of a longer effort to understand what happened to Everland and challenge the forces that shaped its ruin.

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The setting's visual and thematic identity is closely tied to Chinese mythological material, especially the Shan Hai Jing, a classic text associated with fantastic geography, strange peoples and mythical beasts. Rather than treating that influence as a simple coat of paint, CyancookGames is building creatures and biomes around it, combining recognizably fantastical animal designs with a wilderness designed to change how players travel, hunt and fight.

Survival systems built for experimentation

Many crafting games reward careful preparation, but Of Peaks and Tides is emphasizing a more playful kind of improvisation. CyancookGames describes the game through the ideas of "Boundless Creativity" and "Imaginative Combat," with systems intended to let players turn nearby objects, creatures and weather conditions into advantages.

That can include deliberately odd creations such as berry hammers and beehive hammers. The examples are important because they suggest the goal is not merely to offer a standard crafting tree full of predictable swords, axes and bows. Instead, the developers want players to consider what a material does in the world and whether it can be repurposed into a useful tool, a trap, or a weapon. The best answer to a problem may not always be a conventional piece of equipment.

Environmental conditions are expected to matter just as much. Sandstorms and blizzards are not only hazards to endure; they can potentially disrupt enemies and alter the flow of encounters. A player caught in poor weather may be able to use reduced visibility, the movement of the storm, or a rival creature's reaction to gain the upper hand. This approach could make the same area feel different depending on the conditions in which it is visited, especially if dangerous wildlife and enemies are already active nearby.

Plants are also meant to be part of the player's tactical toolkit. Rather than functioning solely as ingredients, vegetation can be used to affect larger creatures, including trapping or manipulating them. That creates opportunities for players to think about positioning before they attack. A successful encounter may involve drawing a massive animal toward the right patch of terrain, waiting for a storm, laying out a constructed obstacle, or combining all of those choices rather than relying on direct damage alone.

Creatures that are part mount, part ecosystem

Everland's wildlife is a major pillar of the concept. The creature roster includes beings inspired by the Shan Hai Jing, with named examples including Fuzhu, Little Taotie, Mischievous Monkeys and the Giant Xi. These are not presented as static enemies placed around the landscape for players to clear. The intention is for animals to function within a living ecosystem, hunting, hiding and responding to their surroundings.

That approach has the potential to make simple travel more eventful. A creature encountered while crossing a forest could be stalking prey, fleeing another threat or reacting to a sudden change in weather before the player ever gets involved. For survival games, wildlife behavior often determines whether the world feels convincingly alive or merely populated. Of Peaks and Tides is aiming for the former by making the animals participants in the environment instead of targets waiting to be activated.

Taming has an especially ambitious role. Some beasts can carry mobile bases, allowing players to build a home or operational hub that travels with them. This could change the usual rhythm of establishing a permanent base and repeatedly returning to it from distant regions. A mobile settlement gives players a reason to move deeper into dangerous territory without abandoning the utility of a crafted home, while also making the choice of which creatures to tame a meaningful logistical decision.

Scale is equally important in the game's traversal plans. Enormous flying creatures can offer ways to cross Everland from the sky, opening up routes that may not be possible on foot. The combination of portable construction and aerial travel suggests a world designed around verticality as well as distance. Mountains, canyons and difficult biomes could become challenges approached through building, beast-taming or flight rather than through a single prescribed path.

From green forests to freezing peaks

Everland will contain a range of distinct biomes, each with its own risks and discoveries. Cangmu Source and lush forest regions offer one face of the world, while deserts and snow-covered mountains represent far harsher extremes. Those locations are expected to alter the survival experience through their climate, resources, creatures and terrain, rather than existing as purely visual variations.

Deserts naturally suit the game's sandstorm systems, creating an environment where visibility and exposure may be as dangerous as hostile wildlife. Snowy peaks, meanwhile, provide a fitting place for blizzards and difficult vertical exploration. Forests could place a greater emphasis on dense vegetation, animal activity and opportunities to use the landscape for cover or traps. If the environmental systems interact as broadly as described, the transition between biomes may require more than simply bringing different armor or collecting a new resource tier.

The road-and-bridge system shown at the Shanghai event also points toward a construction model with practical consequences for exploration. Building connections through demanding terrain can be a major part of survival games, but Of Peaks and Tides appears interested in making infrastructure a collaborative and creative answer to the world's natural barriers. A bridge might connect a settlement to a new resource zone, support the movement of a mobile base, or simply offer a safer route through a dangerous region.

Bosses shaped by conditions, not just arenas

Large-scale boss encounters are another area CyancookGames says it has expanded. The game's broader design suggests that these fights will be intended as tests of adaptation rather than isolated battles with a fixed set of attacks and an empty arena. Environmental conditions, available materials, nearby plants, tamed creatures and player-built structures could all influence how a major encounter unfolds.

That does not guarantee every boss will support every wild idea, but the stated direction is clear: players should have more options than selecting a weapon and trading blows. The game wants a natural disaster to be a possible weapon, a huge creature to become a transport solution, and unusual handmade gear to have value in combat. In the best case, that could lead to stories that are difficult to reproduce exactly, as one group survives through careful construction while another wins by exploiting a storm or bringing an unexpected beast into the fray.

Of Peaks and Tides still has many details to reveal, including its launch timing and the full scope of its survival, multiplayer and progression features. Yet its current pitch stands out because of how strongly it focuses on interactions between systems. CyancookGames is not only promising a fantasy world full of mythical animals; it is promising a world where those animals, its weather, its terrain and player-built creations can collide in surprising ways.

For PC players who enjoy survival crafting but want a setting beyond the usual post-apocalyptic wasteland or medieval fantasy forest, Everland could be one to watch. Its ultimate success will depend on how deeply those reactive systems work in practice, but the combination of ancient Chinese myth, mobile beast-borne bases, environmental combat and construction-driven exploration gives Of Peaks and Tides a distinctly ambitious foundation.