Natural Instincts

About

Natural Instincts is a single player open world management game. It was developed by DreamStorm Studios and was released on July 22, 2021. It received neutral reviews from players.

Protect the environment, and save it from harm! Give commands to the animals, observe their rituals and help them survive. Face different disasters, react to human presence and help the animal kingdom flourish in this unique, environmental experience!

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41%

Audience ScoreBased on 189 reviews

gameplay5 positive mentions

stability7 negative mentions

Interesting and unique wildlife simulation concept with educational value about animal behaviors and ecosystem conservation.
Beautiful visuals and immersive natural environments create a relaxing and appealing atmosphere.
The game offers some engaging mechanics such as strategic resource management, multiple animal species, and a conservation message.

Game development has been abandoned for years, with no updates or support, leaving it unfinished and buggy.
Severe performance issues including lag, crashes, poor optimization, and technical problems make the game often unplayable.
Gameplay is repetitive, shallow, and lacks depth with limited content, poor animal AI, basic controls, and minimal customization.

gameplay
24 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
62%
17%
The gameplay receives mixed feedback, with some appreciating its strategic focus on managing animal needs and resource balancing, while others find it repetitive, simplistic, and lacking depth or polish. It offers an educational and potentially engaging experience for nature enthusiasts, but its limited mechanics and tedious click-and-wait style may lead to boredom for many players.
- “With a focus on managing and protecting different animal species, the game offers a unique and educational gameplay experience.”
- “Strategic gameplay: balancing the needs of animals, managing resources, and making crucial decisions creates a strategic gameplay experience that keeps players engaged and challenged.”
- “Its such a good concept, and honestly would be a good teaching tool to kids learning about ecosystems and even genetics as I'm sure the breeding aspects carry traits to the offspring.”
- “This game has been abandoned with little gameplay and polish, and serious bugs.”
- “And it took me less than half an hour to get tired of both the narrator who talks to you like you're some kind of imbecile, as well as the repeating and tiresome gameplay, or might as well say lack of it.”
- “Gameplay is basically click animals, tell them to drink, eat or sleep, then timelapse to wait for needs to be fulfilled.”
graphics
22 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
45%
41%
14%
The game features beautiful and immersive graphics with detailed environments and realistic elements that enhance the virtual wildlife experience. However, performance issues and lack of in-game graphics adjustments cause lag and limit customization, especially on lower-end systems. Despite some optimization challenges, many players appreciate the vibrant visuals and high-quality feel.
- “Beautiful visuals: the game's stunning graphics and detailed environments bring the virtual wildlife sanctuaries to life, enhancing the overall immersion and enjoyment.”
- “Amazing game, love the graphics and the realistic aspects mixed in with things like the road, and the hunters that can kill and make your animals die off. Super fun game! Would really like if maybe there were more campaigns; they are really fun. Overall though, I love it!”
- “A habitat sandbox game with great graphics and a high quality feel to it.”
- “Graphics options can only be changed from the main menu, so it's possible the multiple transitions are hiding a very small shift or a total lack of one.”
- “My computer struggled to even play the game; I had to set it to the lowest graphics settings and it still struggles.”
- “As of early access 1.0.6, the game needs major optimizations: on my Razer 7 3.4GHz, 24GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM, RX570 8GB GDDR5, I can play most games on highest quality at 30-40fps, but this game on lowest graphics barely reaches 17-20fps.”
story
17 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
18%
64%
18%
The story is seen as challenging but often frustrating due to unclear objectives, repetitive quests, and technical issues causing progress loss. While some appreciate its educational angle and engaging elements like naming animals, many find the narrative lacking depth and variety, resulting in boredom after the tutorials and initial missions. Overall, the story offers potential but is hindered by gameplay and design shortcomings.
- “Being able to name animals, for example, is a small touch to the game, but it has a massive impact on storytelling because you can track the animals you've named.”
- “The autosave is in place and as the game froze once when the wolf died, the autosave returned a moment before that, which helped when I repeatedly failed the wolf mission in time.”
- “I don't think it's too easy or too hard, it's a good in-between; so far the rabbit mission is the hardest but everyone likes a good challenge.”
- “Hard to complete, there's a mission with boars where diseases are spreading and it doesn't tell you how to get rid of it. The only way I can think of getting rid of the diseases is by letting hunters kill your boars or keeping them on the road to be hit by cars. Surely, if the area has endangered animals (because according to the game when your animals die or get a disease they become extinct), there would be a team outside of the forest that monitors these endangered animals to make sure they don't die or suffer from diseases. Also, it's hard to keep them in one area as they love to scatter, and it's hard to keep track of more than 5 animals at a time (they expect you to have 40+ animals on the map).”
- “The tutorial and campaigns are forced for some reason which means I was basically tired of the game for the day by the time I finished the 2 hours of buggy tutorial, endless restarts to fix quests, and the wolves making the most awful noises I've ever heard in a game.”
- “Played it and to start it was fun but after a while got repetitive and quickly finished the story mode; there was nothing more to it.”
optimization
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
30%
40%
30%
The game suffers from significant optimization issues, causing lag and low frame rates even on powerful rigs, with many users experiencing poor performance despite low graphics settings. As it remains in early access, performance problems persist with little improvement, detracting from the overall playability and enjoyment.
- “The only drawback is that as of right now (early access 1.0.6) it needs major optimizations: on my Razer 7 3.4GHz, 24GB RAM DDR4 3200MHz, RX570 8GB GDDR5 256-bit (on which I can play most games on highest quality with at least 30-40fps), this game set on lowest graphics can barely do 17-20fps.”
- “When it comes to performance, I ran it all maxed out on the GTX 1060, i7-8700 and 16GB RAM averaging around 35 fps.”
- “This is an early access game, which results among other things in a quite heavy performance requirement.”
- “It's still in a very early state, with noticeable performance issues even on my high-end rig (AMD 3600X, RTX 2080, 32GB RAM).”
- “As of early access 1.0.6, the game needs major optimization: on my Razer 7 3.4GHz, 24GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM, RX570 8GB GDDR5, this game on lowest graphics can barely reach 17-20 FPS, while other games run at 30-40 FPS on highest settings.”
- “I waited beyond the refund period hoping for an update to improve optimization, but nothing was done.”
stability
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
88%
The game's stability is mixed, with many users reporting frequent bugs, glitches, and performance issues even on high-end PCs, while some note relatively smooth gameplay during early access. UI glitches and forced tutorial restarts contribute to a frustrating experience, though there is potential for improvement. Overall, stability currently detracts from the enjoyment.
- “The game itself runs great for early access, didn't crash once in 3 hours straight. I personally didn't encounter any bugs or glitches.”
- “Extremely abandoned and buggy game.”
- “It's buggy, hard to run on even the best of PCs, and overall boring.”
- “The tutorial and campaigns are forced for some reason which means I was basically tired of the game for the day by the time I finished the 2 hours of buggy tutorial, endless restarts to fix quests and the wolves making the most awful noises I've ever heard in a game.”
grinding
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is often described as tedious and repetitive, with slow camera movement and unbalanced gameplay contributing to a feeling of monotony during routine tasks.
- “The camera also moves so slowly through the environment that it becomes tedious at times.”
- “Gameplay now appears quite unbalanced and tedious, tutorial instructions are rather clumsy.”
- “It definitely is tedious and sometimes boring going from drink > eat > sleep > mate > repeat over and over again.”
music
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The music is praised for being very nice and relaxing, complemented by a calming narrator voice that enhances the overall experience.
- “The music and the narrator's voice are incredibly calming as well.”
- “Nice relaxing music.”
- “The voiceover startled the hell out of me because I turned my volume up to hear the very nice music.”
replayability
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game currently offers limited replayability due to a narrow selection of animals and a lack of engaging content, making it less compelling for repeated play.
- “It's a neat idea on its face, however with such a narrow selection of animals to choose from and not much to do, there isn't any replayability.”
- “I cannot wait for this to be a little more playable.”
monetization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users feel that the game’s monetization feels like a cash grab, with limited content released before the project was abandoned, leading to disappointment despite an initially enjoyable experience.
- “I was super excited for this game but it was so short lived, it was abandoned pretty soon and seems like a cash grab which is incredibly disappointing as the small amount of content that was released was pretty fun and the idea was great.”
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users find the emotional aspect of the game deeply impactful and heartbreaking, evoking strong feelings and a powerful emotional response.
- “It's heartbreaking.”