Kentum

A very long nap, and a planet that's moved on without you

Kentum is developer Tlön Industries' metroidvania, published by indienova and V Publishing and released 6 November 2025 for Windows. Players control Kent, the last human alive after a record-breaking, millennia-spanning nap, waking in the year 10,000 with little more than a stick and a dry sense of humour to rebuild civilization from a broken space module. The premise blends survival-crafting fundamentals, scanning and classifying an ever-changing world's flora, fauna and minerals, with metroidvania-style exploration and progression, and factory-style automation, building machines that convert scavenged resources into the tools, upgrades and research needed to push further into the game's biomes, with Kent's ability to reclone himself after death softening the sting of the game's environmental and combat hazards along the way.

A genre fusion reviewers say actually holds together

The single most consistent thread running through Kentum's review corpus is enthusiasm for how effectively its disparate genre influences work together. Reviewers repeatedly and specifically praise the blend of metroidvania exploration and upgrading with base-building and automation, with one detailed review calling it "kind of impressive how well they've managed to blend the genres together so effectively without severely lacking in some areas." A distinctive mechanical hook draws its own specific, repeated credit: conveyor belts double as platforming surfaces, letting players design production chains that are simultaneously functional factories and traversal routes, with one reviewer describing the appeal of puzzling out "a Rube Goldberg machine of farms and machines" and watching finished products slide and fall their way to completion. Art direction and presentation earn consistent, specific praise across the corpus, with reviewers describing a gorgeous, varied visual style and genuinely fascinating creature and plant design, while writing and voice acting draw their own repeated credit for dry humour and strong performances that several reviewers say elevate the game's overall quality well beyond what its modest profile might suggest.

Watering cans, spoilage, and a base-building layer reviewers call thin

Set against that enthusiasm, a specific and independently repeated complaint concerns Kentum's base-building and survival systems. Multiple detailed reviews single out manual plant watering as a persistent, tedious chore, with one reviewer noting that despite "almost everything else in the game being fully automated," players still have to manually water hundreds or thousands of plants every few in-game days, turning what should be a solved problem into a recurring source of frustration. A closely related complaint concerns a spoilage mechanic tied to research requirements, with reviewers describing the sting of losing large batches of gathered items to decay before a research goal is complete, forcing repeated re-gathering runs for what one reviewer calls "a small incremental change." Base-building depth itself draws a further, specific complaint, with reviewers describing the system as shallow and repetitive, centred mainly on maximizing farm plot count rather than offering meaningfully varied construction choices, a criticism that recurs alongside otherwise consistent praise for the game's automation and exploration halves.

Combat, bugs, and a developer already listening

A further, specific and repeated complaint concerns combat and technical polish. Reviewers describe encounters as inconsistent and occasionally frustrating, with one detailed review arguing enemies can feel "tricky" without clear, fair ways to counter them, particularly as the game progresses past its early hours. Specific, named bugs compound that frustration for some players, with reviewers citing camera tracking failures during dash movement, inventory and crafting menus locking the camera's zoom level even after closing, and combat animations freezing entirely during multi-enemy encounters, while a separate, repeated complaint concerns the absence of remappable controls, which more than one reviewer specifically flags as a basic missing feature for a PC release. Notably, Kentum's developers draw specific credit for responsiveness within the review corpus itself: one detailed review documents shifting from a negative to a positive verdict after patches addressed two of the game's most repeatedly cited complaints, trash management and the addition of crop sprinklers, directly, suggesting active, ongoing support even as several structural complaints about base-building depth and combat consistency remain unresolved.

A terraforming studio's detour into metroidvania territory

Kentum arrives from Tlön Industries, a Buenos Aires-based studio founded in 2019 whose prior work includes Per Aspera, a science-fiction strategy and simulation game about terraforming Mars that won Best Game Design and Best Latin American Game at BIG 2021. That background in systems-heavy simulation design helps explain a specific strength reviewers keep returning to: Kentum's automation and production-chain systems read as the work of a studio comfortable with genuinely complex interlocking mechanics, even where the metroidvania and base-building genres wrapped around those systems are newer territory for the team. At least one reviewer specifically namechecks Tlön Industries' next project, Demiurgos, expressing hope it finds a publisher soon, a small but telling sign of goodwill built up specifically through Kentum's reception rather than the studio's earlier, differently-genred work. Whether that simulation pedigree explains the specific gap reviewers identify between Kentum's confident automation systems and its comparatively thinner base-management and combat layers is speculative, but the pattern fits a studio still working out how its core design strengths translate into a new genre combination.

Value

At NZ$26.29, Kentum asks a reasonable price for an ambitious, genre-blending metroidvania, and most of its review base considers the trade worthwhile given the strength of its art direction, writing and distinctive automation-driven traversal, even where its base-management systems and combat draw real, repeated criticism. The Mostly Positive score, 152 positive against 45 negative across 197 reviews, reflects a review base broadly won over by the ambition and craft of the genre fusion on display, tempered by a specific, repeated complaint that tedious manual watering, a shallow base-building layer and inconsistent combat hold the experience back from matching its own best ideas. For fans of automation and crafting games willing to tolerate genuine tedium in exchange for a distinctive metroidvania built around it, Kentum is worth a look, with the understanding that ongoing patches suggest its rougher edges may continue to soften over time.