Peppa Pig: World Adventures review: if pigs could fly
There are so many things that baffled me about Peppa Pig: World Adventures that when the Queen drove a tour bus over an open Tower Bridge, I didn’t even question it. It seems like it's supposed to be an edutainment product for its core age group, four to six years old, but it gets things wrong on two parts. Firstly, it does not understand children of this age, and secondly, it offers little more than a shallow pool of stereotypes.
In World Adventures you travel to eight different locations outside of Peppa Pig’s hometown: New York, Hollywood, London, Paris, Barcelona, Italy, Germany, and Australia. You’ll notice that the last three aren’t like the others, and you’ll see that throughout there is very little consistency here. In Barcelona you go to ‘Les Ramblas’[sic] and then play football on the beach, after completing a tour of an unusually complete La Sagrada Familia.
Then you’re off to Australia to a town that on the map looks close to Alice Springs. Even if we ignore the fact that New Zealand has been glued to the bottom of Oz, there are even more geographical impossibilities. You have a picnic in the outback, and then take a submarine to the Great Barrier Reef. I’m not looking for realism here – I think you should be able to star in a Hollywood movie in a game, but if you are trying to educate people on other cultures, there could be more nuance, or at least ensure correct spellings and accurate landmarks.
Then we come to the Queen. Peppa Pig tries very hard to point out to parents that the Queen’s inclusion is a memorial to her, but it is very clear that the developers didn’t think it was worth the time to remake the London chapter. If you are trying to include a fitting tribute to Her Maj’ you probably don’t want her saying what a big fan she is of Peppa Pig before driving a London bus completely recklessly, followed by jumping in puddles.
Peppa Pig: World Adventures is better than Roblox
For some reason, children are drawn to Roblox, but parents with any sense know to keep them well away. If Peppa Pig distracts your child from playing Roblox for even an hour, then it's worth its weight in gold.
Peppa Pig: World Adventures is worse than Zoombinis
Zoombinis is the first game many think of when they think of edutainment, and the fact that it is still available to buy today, 30 years since its release, speaks to its excellence. While Zoombinis is more math and science-based, it puts fun at the forefront of the learning, with puzzles and challenges your children will spend hours absorbed in.
Don’t get me wrong, this was the best part of the whole game. It was charming, fun, and all of the landmarks had interesting facts about them, but it wasn’t honoring the Queen’s memory. If Lizzie had been keen on doing sick stunts in a double-decker bus I’m sure we’d all know about it. More research was needed into other countries, and then perhaps the team would have felt comfortable enough to have more fun adventures like the London one.
This takes us to the central issue. It doesn’t understand the capabilities of four to six year olds. For six years I used to teach kindergarten, and homeroom was this exact age group. Children at this age develop very quickly, and they always want to challenge themselves. Many of my students played Pokémon, Mario Kart, or Kirby. They didn’t excel at any of these games, but they were developing skills and pushing themselves.
The core gameplay in Peppa Pig is holding a button, and I mean this literally; hold a button to make the elevator go up, hold a button to raise the bridge, hold a button to put a pizza in the oven. That’s all there is to it. Sometimes you might have to walk around a bit, but even in the football (or soccer) minigame, the goalie never attempts to defend the goal, you have forever to take your shot.
My students would have sniffed at these basic challenges. If we then assume the game is for younger kids, they would struggle with their fine motor skills. While they could grasp the concept, they would be able to control the game better if it had chunky touchscreen controls. But there aren’t any, even on the Switch.
Overall, Peppa Pig: World Adventures does very little to entertain and even less to educate, often missing out on what makes the show charming. There is no particular age group which could get the most out of it, failing to stimulate older children, while being difficult for younger ones to control. Peppa might spark interest in your child to learn more about the world, but you’ll have to first undo some of the strange mistakes and stereotypes it also teaches.
Peppa Pig: World Adventures technical breakdown
Despite there being very little interaction, Peppa Pig has excruciating long loading times between each and every scene change. This would likely be enough to stop younger kids from playing. It won’t crash on you, but you often get brief flashes of various scenes while others are loading or unloading. This might also scare off a younger audience.
Some screens lead to two different areas and these have a tendency to bug out. If you move from one screen to another and back, some activities will despawn. You will often trigger random cutscenes that aren’t related to what you have already done, and sometimes button prompts will remain on screen long after an activity is finished.
Peppa also likes to constantly call out what you should be doing, and this will play over anything anyone else is saying, giving you double audio. I would say that this double audio error happens more often than not. The only time it isn’t present is in cutscenes. It has subtitles so I tried to play with the volume off, but as this is aimed at non-readers they will really struggle with it.
Score: 3/10
- Narrative: 3/10
- Technical performance: 4/10
- Art: 9/10
- Audio and music: 5/10
- Mechanics and systems: 0/10
Version tested: Nintendo Switch
About the author
Georgina Young was a teacher for over a decade before she made the switch to gaming. She spent six years teaching kindergarten to Peppa Pig’s core audience. She has also studied child psychology to masters level and knows what makes kids tick. She has been working reviewing games for about three years, and has played a lot of games your children will enjoy more.
