Meadow
Meadow is a relaxed, buy-to-play social MMO built around exploration and quiet interaction rather than quests or combat. You roam a wide natural landscape as an animal, meet other players out in the wild, and “talk” using an expressive set of sounds and symbols that fits the game’s wordless tone.
 | Publisher: Might and Delight Playerbase: Low Type: Social MMO Release Date: October 26, 2016 Pros: +Many animals to play and collect. +Calm, friendly social vibe. +Beautiful art style and scenery. Cons: -Gameplay loop can feel samey. -Performance can be uneven. -Limited objectives beyond exploration and socializing. |
Meadow Overview
Meadow is a sandbox MMO with a simple pitch: wander, observe, and connect. It is often framed as a “forum wearing a game,” because the heart of the experience is meeting strangers, forming small groups, and sharing moments in a peaceful world instead of chasing a traditional progression ladder. The presentation and animal cast draw directly from Might and Delight’s Shelter games, so the visuals lean into painterly textures and a nature-forward atmosphere.
At the start you pick from 9 playable animals and drop into an open environment designed for freeform travel. You can explore solo at your own pace, or drift toward other players and roam together, which gives it a similar feel to the quiet social wandering found in games like The Endless Forest. Meadow avoids text chat, so interaction happens through a curated set of emotes, symbols, and animal sounds. Over time you learn how players use these tools to greet, guide, warn, or simply be friendly.
Finding company is helped along by a tracking system that points you toward other animals if you want to seek out activity. Progress is primarily about discovery and self-expression: as you explore, you unlock customization options such as skins, plus a large set of expressions and symbols. Players who own earlier Shelter-related products can also access additional content, including extra animals from the main titles, new sound options tied to soundtracks, 3D emotes connected to interactive books, and other bonuses.
Meadow Key Features:
- Open-Ended Roaming – move through a broad landscape at your own pace, spotting new areas and viewpoints along the way.
- Wordless Social Tools – communicate through a large library of symbols, emotes, and sounds instead of typing messages.
- Animals and Custom Looks – play as multiple animal types and personalize them with unlockable skins and expressive icons.
- Tracking and Grouping – use the tracking system to locate other players when you want company, or avoid it when you prefer solitude.
- Distinct Shelter-Style Art – enjoy a calm, stylized world with the recognizable visual identity of the Shelter series.
Meadow Screenshots
Meadow Featured Video
Meadow Review
Meadow succeeds most when you approach it as a shared space, not a checklist-driven game. The moment-to-moment play is deliberately light: you travel through fields, forests, and hills, occasionally pausing to take in the scenery or to follow a trail toward other animals. When you do meet players, the limited communication system becomes the main “mechanic,” encouraging simple cooperation and playful roleplay without the pressure of typing or min-maxing.
The strongest part of the experience is its tone. The art direction is striking and cohesive, and the sound design supports the idea that you are inhabiting a creature rather than controlling a character with a traditional interface. Because everyone is constrained to emotes and animal noises, encounters tend to be welcoming, and groups often form organically as players mirror each other’s movements or guide newcomers toward points of interest.
Customization and unlocks provide gentle motivation to keep exploring. Earning new skins and expressions is satisfying, and it reinforces the social nature of the game, since personalizing your animal is a big part of how you “introduce” yourself. The bonus unlocks tied to other Shelter products also make Meadow feel like a companion piece for fans of the studio’s wider catalog, extending that universe into a multiplayer setting.
That said, Meadow is intentionally low on structured activities, and that can be a sticking point. If you want directed objectives, combat, or a clear endgame, you may run out of things to do fairly quickly. The tracking system helps you find people, but it cannot fully solve the issue that the core loop is primarily wandering and social interaction. Technical performance can also be inconsistent depending on your setup, which can be frustrating in a game that relies on immersion.
Meadow is best recommended to players who enjoy calm exploration games, social sandboxes, and atmospheric “hangout” experiences. If you can make your own fun through discovery and shared moments, it is an unusually serene MMO. If you need constant goals and mechanical depth, it is likely to feel repetitive over longer sessions.
Meadow System Requirements
Minimum Requirements:
Operating System: Windows 7 / Mac OSX 10.8+/ Ubuntu 12.04 or better
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz, AMD Athlon X2 2.8 GHz or better
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660, ATI Radeon HD 2xxx, 2GB VRAM
RAM: 4 GB
Hard Disk Space: 2GB
Meadow Music & Soundtrack
Coming Soon…
Meadow Additional Information
Developer: Might and Delight
Publisher: Might and Delight
Release Date: October 26, 2016
Development History / Background:
Meadow is developed and published by Might and Delight, an independent studio known for smaller, art-focused projects. The team’s earlier releases include Shelter, Pan-Pan, and The Blue Flamingo, all of which emphasize distinct presentation and mood over conventional genre structure. Meadow was conceived as a gentle multiplayer companion to the Shelter series, reusing its animals and visual style while shifting the focus toward social exploration and collection-driven customization. It launched on Steam on October 26, 2016, and has continued to receive updates that add elements such as additional animals and achievements.