Did I like this game? Yes, absolutely, whole-heartedly. My game time alone should clarify that. I have basically two games that I play and periodically cycle through, and this is one of them.



This is going to be partly a DST review, partly a DS/DST comparison. For clarity, I’ll say now that when I write DST I mean Don’t Starve Together, while when I write DS I mean Don’t Starve (its single player-only counterpart).


DS was the first to be created, and when DST was born a few years later, it was initially not much more than a multiplayer version of DS and its DLC Reign of Giants (which in DST is included for free). However, it soon acquired a spirit of its own with A New Reign, a first update chain which introduced many new bosses and items, and Return of Them, a still-ongoing update chain which introduces sea content, with new surface and underground biomes and mechanics: one of the main points in favour of buying DST over DS is that it is more “polished” and receives monthly updates by Klei, while DS is essentially a complete game. The developers are in close touch with the community, and listen to what players have to say: if an update is perceived as faulty in some way by a majority of users, Klei listens and “fixes” things to a better state.
However, DS has some things that DST doesn’t have: tougher survival for those who like more challenge (food is harder to obtain, and coping with harsh seasons like Winter and Summer is considerably harder), Adventure Mode (what sometimes people refer to when they say “beating Don’t Starve”: it is both challenging and fun), and Shipwrecked and Hamlet, two DLCs that, according to Klei, won’t be integrated into DST: while Return of Them may sound similar in concept to Shipwrecked, they are actually very different settings. So, if one plans to mainly play alone, and enjoys a hardcore survival game, I’d say get DS, not DST: in DST: both mechanics and survival options (especially food) are more lenient towards players. For base-building, however, DST has more options, including skinned objects (I’ll delve into this later).



So, who is DST for? There's something for everyone: those who like base-building will be satisfied; those who like rushing goals in as little time as possible will be satisfied; those who like fighting powerful bosses will be satisfied.

In my experience, DST is much easier with others than alone, because it is possible to split tasks between different players and do things more quickly. Bosses are also much easier, so I usually play with others when I want to chill out and have some fun, and alone when I want some more challenge.

For what concerns customisation of gameplay, DST is rich for what concerns food, but lacking in other fields. This may be a pity for a few people, like me, but it doesn’t affect enjoyability of the game that much, so I think it’s a secondary aspect. However, I would still like to go into it.

Food-wise, it definitely shines: I personally feed mainly on stone fruits, other people are the meatballs-meatballs-meatballs kind, others still like to feed their character with their favourite food, benefitting from the extra 15 hunger points that it grants. The character of Warly needs varied foods as part of his gameplay, and Warly players are quite fond of this challenge.

Equipment-wise, it doesn’t shine as much. There are basically six pieces of armour that are worth crafting: log suit, football helmet, marble suit, nightmare armour, thulecite suit and thulecite crown. Players end up using mainly football helmets and log suits, with the occasional marble suits: this is because the other ones are not cheap, especially thulecite equipment. Before end-game, when one usually has an excess of nightmare fuel and thulecite (the two ingredients needed for the nightmare armour and the thulecite suit/crown), people will only use log suits/football helmets/marble armours. If one considers that thulecite equipment actually protects less than marble equipment (90% of thulecite vs 95% of marble), which means that a character wearing marble can withstand two times the hits of a character wearing thulecite, it can seem like a waste to use these materials for armour (it is true, however, that the thulecite crown has some interesting bonuses).

This is due to the fact that unlike other games, DST (and DS) lack a true tier progression system: you’ll build a science machine, and then an alchemy engine, and later a prestihatitor and a shadow manipulator, but very valuable weapons and armour can already be crafted from the alchemy engine, which I can usually acquire within the first 10 days of (relaxed) play and which for me usually marks a plateau of technological development. 

So, while for food you’ll see different players eat differently, in the early-mid game all players will fight the dragonfly with log suits/football helmets and a ham bat; all players will fight the bee queen with beekeeper hats; all players will try to acquire a tam o shanter for sanity, etc. [it may be argued that many foods are good for restoring sanity, and sure, I use them too, but I never saw anyone completely ditch the tam to rely solely on food for their sanity]
To survive harsh seasons, like summer and winter, different options are available, and evenly spread among different players: thermal stones (summer and winter), eyebrellas (summer), beefalo hats (winter), tam o shanters (winter), but even this is a quite small customisation pool if compared to other games.


I previously mentioned cosmetic skins: they are a feature exclusive to DST (not present in any way in DS), which allows to dress characters in different ways, and build structures with different appearances. This means that skins don’t affect gameplay in any way: differently-dressed characters will have no bonuses and differently-skinned structures will work in exactly the same way as their basic counterpart, so skins are just a way to look prettier or make a prettier base.

There is one (partial) exception: DLC characters (Wortox, Wurt and Wormwood). They actually provide differences in gameplay, but like most skins they can be either bought or “weaved” for free: once a day, upon logging into the game, each player receives one free cosmetic skin, and while playing, each week, a total of 8 other skins can be acquired, for a total of 15 skins per week. It is possible to exchange these skins for spool to spend in getting other skins or the DLC characters, and I think this is a good way of handling things: no one has to actually buy anything with real money, besides the game, but for those who want to support Klei and the game’s development, there is the option of buying skins.

On top of the 15 drops per week, concomitantly with the game update Klei usually releases extra skins that can be acquired for free (no spool, no money) by watching game streams on Twitch.

One last comment goes to the modding community: it is rich both in DS and DST, and in DST it often allows to bring past events back (“The Forge”, “The Gorge,” and even “Year of the gobbler/varg/pig/carrat”). I have already been long enough, so I will link a discussion post in the forum in which I highlighted some very relevant mods for both DS and DST, in case anyone is interested (please, refer to the link I sent, instead of going to the top of the page and read the version that is marked as answer to the thread. I later edited it, but the edits don’t appear there).



Hoping readers are still alive at the end of this wall of text, enjoy the game ^^