John, the main protagonist, uses offensive skills involving weapons and bombs, as well as the ability to move heavy objects.

Sam, the second protagonist, uses support skills such as stunning enemies, clearing hazardous fields with an energy ball, and squeezing into small spaces.

Outside of combat, players may encounter non-player characters to interact with, save their progress at specialized fridges, and use ingredients to create food items that restore health and provide bonus effects, such as increasing damage power.

Although the plague destroyed societies and killed nearly every living being in its path, human survivors moved underground by creating new homes to restart civilization.

Some humans eventually returned to the surface world to establish new settlements, re-use old technology, and - in some cases - revere the entities of ancient gods.

Miner John, who lives underground in Potcrock Isle, comes across a young girl named Sam and adopts her as his daughter.

After learning of Sam's actions, John attempted to rescue her, Potcrock's mayor banishes the pair, sending them away on an old passenger train dubbed "Charon".

Despite their situation, the pair find the outside world to be pleasant, and soon reach a small settlement called Greenberg, which they attempt to settle within.

Greenberg is destroyed, but John and Sam are saved by a mysterious woman called Isabel, who helps them leave on Charon.

Sam subsequently forgets what happened, leaving her oblivious to Greenberg's fate, as she and John travel to New Dam City via train.

To follow Isabel and Alva to Ester City, John and Sam enlist William and his robot companion, Daniel.

They reenter the Eternal Tower and encounter the real Solomon, who reveals that he created the time field and aims to rebuild humanity as per Mother's instructions.

Pixpil outsourced the music to Joel Corelitz due to issues finding local composers that could mesh with Eastward's style.

[3] The studio mentioned being open to porting it to additional platforms, but decided to focus on Switch, macOS, and Windows for launch.

[4][5] Eastward's cooking system was inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's mechanic of bonuses depending on the ingredient.

[7][8] Video game media outlets commented positively on John and Sam's characterization, as well as Eastward's story, visuals, and attention to detail.

"[1] Rock Paper Shotgun's Katharine Castle commented that Eastward is "an affecting, detail-rich tale that owes as much to the action of top-down Zelda games as it does to the role-playing intimacy of EarthBound.

"[2] Jon Bailes of NME criticized the game's length, writing "Eastward is a very good 12-15-hour experience bouncing around inside a 20-hour plus slog.

[1][18][20] The Legend of Zelda, EarthBound, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy have all been mentioned as games that Eastward pays homage to.

[19] Carpenter wrote that "Eastward is not subtle about its influences: Chinese developer Pixpil has lovingly pulled inspiration from all sorts of media and combined it into a pixel art role-playing game that's still, somehow, unquestionably itself.