Immortal Life Reviews

Very unique farming game! The Daoist cultivation aspect makes me feel like i'm inside a novel, the crafting and cooking systems are very original and the combat feels like a bullet heaven, it's super fun!

i really like this. i like both farmings games and xianxia, and this is a great combination. being able to stay up continuously without eating makes you feel like a real cultivator instead of breaking immersion. you're encouraged to use sleep to restore your power, but less often especially as you get access to powerful spiritual foods. cooking is a fun minigame and there's lots of opportunities to do so even if you are hoarding ingredients, there are several cooking quests and eventually a randomized quest each solar term. you can also use food to hold banquets for your friends and they have comments for each item, it's lovely. sometimes you do feel like you're running slowly, a base speed boost would be welcome. there are food and elixirs that increase speed temporarily though. i saw other reviews complain about the names. it may be difficult for non-chinese, but i promise it's possible with a little time, and besides the map has pictures of the characters too. i find the inventory management and fetch quests to be more bread and butter gameplay rather than exhausting grind. you're a powerful magical farmer, growing the crops is easy - it's scaling up production, inventory management, and delivery that are your challenges! the combat is not super interesting but not super boring. i just wish i didn't have to do it quite so often. perhaps if li mengqing could take less than 5 days to do what i can do in a half day... i wish i knew how everyone was addressing me. i worked out a few of the shidi and shixiong, but not all of them... it'd be easier to read than to hear foreign words. usually i agree with adapting titles and honorifics to make things more accessible, but in xianxia i feel they're a key part of the setting. there is no romance. this seems to be really upsetting for a lot of the previous players, but i think that's because their expectations were betrayed and not because it's actually needed. i'm too busy building our sect anyways! a romance update would be a fun addition, not a long awaited necessity. i gotta go back to taking care of a spiritual cactus now. no rest for the blessed

Immortal Life is a richly atmospheric farming and life simulation game that blends the comfort of slow-paced rural living with the mysticism of Chinese cultivation fantasy. Set in the aftermath of a disaster that strikes the once-prosperous Guiyun Sect, you take on the role of a novice cultivator tasked with rebuilding the community, nurturing the land, and unlocking your spiritual potential. While it borrows heavily from familiar farming sims like Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon, it adds a unique layer of cultural specificity, magic-infused systems, and deeply immersive world-building that give it a distinctive identity. At the heart of the gameplay lies a satisfying farming loop. You plant and harvest crops, care for the soil, gather resources, and upgrade tools—but everything is touched by a fantastical sense of cultivation. Tools are magical, crops grow under the influence of spiritual energy, and your progress is measured not only in gold or yields but also in your character’s cultivation level. You can summon rain clouds to water your fields, channel spiritual energy into the soil to boost growth, and eventually master a suite of abilities that make you feel more like a Taoist sage than a simple farmer. The stamina and mana systems are tightly integrated into your daily rhythm, encouraging strategic planning and efficient resource use without ever feeling punishing. The cooking system is one of the standout features. Rather than a simple “combine ingredients and wait” mechanic, cooking in Immortal Life involves a more hands-on, mini-game style interaction. You prepare dishes step by step, slicing, stirring, and timing your actions to maximize quality. This makes cooking an engaging, skill-based diversion that also feeds directly back into your cultivation journey—offering buffs, income, and valuable relationship progress with other characters. The game smartly automates recipes once you’ve mastered them, preserving the joy of discovery while keeping long-term play from becoming tedious. Combat and exploration add another layer to the experience. While not the game’s central focus, dungeon crawling and elemental spellcasting bring moments of intensity and danger. Enemies are drawn from traditional Chinese folklore, and combat is straightforward but visually satisfying. You can equip elemental techniques, dodge attacks, and use a mix of ranged and melee skills. These sequences break up the quiet pace of farming and offer rare materials needed for upgrades, though combat mechanics themselves are relatively simple compared to full-fledged RPGs. Still, they contribute to the feeling that you're not just a farmer—you’re a cultivator with greater destiny. Equally important is the social dimension. Your fellow sect members and townsfolk are not just quest givers but meaningful companions with their own lives, roles, and stories. Through gift-giving, conversations, and task completion, you earn their trust and unlock new features, buildings, and quests. While romance is absent—an odd omission for some players—the relationships still feel fulfilling and grounded. Instead of dating, you can invite certain characters to become housemates, further strengthening your bond and enriching your home life. These interactions are framed with sincerity, and the writing, while simple, is earnest and effective. Visually, Immortal Life is beautiful in a calm and painterly way. The art is inspired by traditional Chinese watercolor styles, with soft brush textures and carefully chosen color palettes that shift with the seasons and time of day. Architecture, clothing, and objects are deeply rooted in Chinese aesthetics, offering a setting that feels both peaceful and culturally immersive. The ambient soundtrack is equally soothing—blending traditional instruments with light environmental effects to create a soundscape that invites you to settle in for the long haul. It’s a game where even doing chores feels like meditation. That said, the game isn’t without rough edges. Inventory management can become cumbersome, particularly when dealing with multiple crop qualities and crafting materials. The UI, while functional, could use more polish—some menus feel cluttered or unintuitive, and there’s a lack of clear tutorials for more advanced mechanics. Fast travel is initially absent, making early backtracking a chore, though the introduction of tools like the Divine Compass in later updates helps mitigate this. Controller support is somewhat inconsistent as well, making mouse-and-keyboard the better experience for most players. Despite these small frustrations, the overall experience is remarkably rewarding. The sense of progression is both personal and communal. You see your farm expand, your buildings restored, your cultivation techniques sharpened, and your sect flourish. Every in-game day brings new possibilities, whether that’s unlocking a new recipe, opening up a new crafting system, discovering a hidden cave, or building deeper bonds with your sect mates. The game moves at its own pace, never rushing you but always rewarding consistent engagement. Immortal Life succeeds in creating a rich and cohesive world that offers both tranquility and purpose. Its blend of farming simulation, magical cultivation, social connection, and gentle exploration results in a deeply immersive experience that stands apart from more Western-inspired life sims. For those looking to relax while still feeling a sense of steady achievement—and for anyone drawn to the aesthetics and philosophy of Xianxia storytelling—it’s a uniquely satisfying journey. Even with a few technical hiccups, the heart and craftsmanship behind the game shine through, making it a memorable and engaging title that continues to grow and improve with each update. Rating: 7/10

Like: - The efficient farming through different techniques. It saves a lot of time, creates more fun and it is easier to earn in game money. It is cool to see how magic can be used for farm simulation. - The overall chinese design, culture and cuisine: architecture is great! Dishes are great! The fashion is great! - The stories with the different charakters are interesting. Everytime I triggered another story, I am always eager to see how it developes. - The different realms: each one is so well thought. From monster design to item design and dungeon design. Everything matches perfectly. - Jade pendant: interesting to have access to level up the abilities and to buy different items needed. In my opinion, the jade pendant is an important key item in this game. - I also love the idea of the cultivation of immortality. I love the breakthrough battle. It looks beautifully (could be a bit harder, in my opinion). - General shortcuts with different items, buildings etc: you can really feel and see that the developers where thinking in the mind of the player to make this game really enjoyable and entertaining. New idea: - The vegetable and fruit stand only sells crop seeds. It would be cool, if it sells crops too. - Slower time pacing would be great. Instead of 15 min in game, I suggest to change it to following: 5 min while walking a certain distant, entering shops and 15 min while going to another location.

Out of the dozens of farming game released each month, only Immortal Life, Dinkum, and Stardew sticks. And so far, Immortal Life surprisingly outperforms the other two. There is just so much content, and that almost everything you cultivated, fished, dropped through combat will serve a purpose, making your hard work feels meaningful. The game is not as polished in terms of its UI, font, or controller mapping, but it's much polished in terms of QoL mechanics. There is one storage system where all your goodies are kept (thank god), no real punishment for staying past bed time, and you can plant crops out of season (with deduction in yield), the town is much closer to your field and that you can start building teleporters very early on. It provides much more leeway and freedom in terms of how you want your game played out. I'm 80 hours in and it feels like I'm only half way through the main content, definitely recommended. (tips: avoid using controller for games developed by small Chinese studio, opt for keyboard and mouse instead)

The concept, art, and music are stellar. However, using a controller is "supported" and the keyboard and mouse controls are painful. There is no romance and characters don't seem to have much to say. There is no livestock. And by Summer, the grind was really starting to ramp up in what felt like early game. The UI is just awkward, and when combined with the terrible controls, it's just not good.

As soon as I got to the cooking tutorial I uninstalled. The game makes you wait about 7 years before it lets you move on to the next step in the tutorial. If I press a button to acknowledge the step just move to the next step. Whoever developed this game thinks the players are brain dead toddlers that take 30 minutes to read 3 lines of text. It was just plain obnoxious.

at first i had a good expectation as this is a new genre of crafting game, however the there is a lot of bugs in the game especially in the event progression like the drop for a rare seed is not dropping and so much more, now it feels like a junk

the dev that romance would be added a long time ago and it never was. feels like a bait and switch to me. played almost 6 hours. if you really like farming sims and have nothing else to play, and don't care that relationships aren't involved, get it on sale. it's also very grindy, and only gets worse from what I've seen on youtube. was planning on playing this all the way through when they added romance, but realized they never did

I want to like this game, its art style and music are great, the concept is amazing, but the execution is lacking. This game severely needs polish. the menus are laggy on crontroller, the game is slow, the text box is slightly too close to the bottom of the screen, your character walks slightly too slow, the button mapping is super weird and not easily customized on controller. If this game gets a few more polish updates i think it would end up being great but right now i cannot recommend. The game could also use some form of craft from storage, a qol feature that every game needs these days.