Your main objective is to look after your Drakes and ensure their survival. Drakes can be killed by the Feral, die of hunger, thirst, boredom, and exhaustion. Players must build structures in their camps to provide for Drakes needs and make sure they don’t get attacked.
While the basis may sound simple, things get a little more complex as the seasons change. When the seasons change in Drake Hollow, so do your Drakes’ needs. For example, in the summer they need more water and when winter falls, they need more entertainment.
How Many Drakes Can You Have?
There are four Drakes available in each biome, in addition to the two you start with. When you find a Drake, you must wake them up for them to join your camp. Drakes provide charms which are needed for building camp items throughout the game. They also provide healing at the camp and have the option to offer a buff for your player character.
For your Drakes to age, and thus provide a different level of strength, you must give them the right type of crystal. You can have up to 40 non-retired Drakes in your camp at any one time. If you find more Drakes after you hit the 40 limit, you won’t be able to wake them up until you retire a Drake.
Growth Stages and Drake Ages
There are 6 growth stages that Drakes go through while in your camp. These are:
- Infant
- Adolescent
- Adult
- Mature
- Elder
- Retired
As Drakes advance through their growth stages, they offer more EXP, healing, and charms. However, they will also require more resources to ensure their survival. You do have control over a Drakes’ growth stages as you’ll need to give them the appropriate crystals to grow. Make sure you only advance your Drakes when you know you have the right number of resources to provide for their new growth stage lifestyle.
Drake Infant Stage
- EXP: 10
- Charms: 15
- Hunger, Thirst, and Boredom: 1
- Advancement: 5 Crystal Shards
Drake Adolescent Stage
- EXP: 30
- Charms: 30
- Hunger, Thirst, and Boredom: 2
- Advancement: 5 Cut Crystals
Drake Adult Stage
- EXP: 50
- Charms: 50
- Hunger, Thirst, and Boredom: 5
- Advancement: 5 Polished Crystals
Drake Mature Stage
- EXP: 90
- Charms: 100
- Hunger, Thirst, and Boredom: 8
- Advancement: 5 Engraved Crystals
Drake Elder Stage
- EXP: 130
- Charms: 200
- Hunger, Thirst, and Boredom: 12
- Advancement: 10 Runic Crystals
Drake Retired Stage
- EXP: 170
- Charms: 0
- Hunger, Thirst, and Boredom: 0
- Advancement: None
What happens when you hit 40 Drakes?
As mentioned above, there is a limit in place for 40 Drakes, but if you want a specific Drake when you have hit the limit, it’s not an issue, you can simply retire one drake which will allow you to take on a new one.
Alternatively, you can of course simply wait until one of your Drakes die before getting the new one you are after.
What happens if Drakes die in Drake Hollow?
There are multiple ways Drakes can die in Drake Hollow, most commonly from boredom or Feral attacks during raids. If they die, they’re gone, it’s not like some games where creatures are simply knocked out and need time to recover.
But it’s not all bad news, once your Drake dies, another will spawn somewhere, meaning you can just go and find it and replenish your ranks.
What happens when a Drake retires?
Drake Hollow has a pretty unique feature, instead of having a cap at 40 and a requirement to simply get rid of one of your Drakes, you can age them up a final time to retirement age.
At retirement age a Drake will give you a boost of bonus XP and then turn to stone, once they have turned into a stone statue of their former selves, you can freely move them anywhere you want.
If you or anyone on multiplayer with you had the boost from this particular Drake which you retired, it’s not an issue as you can simply visit the statue of the retired Drake and regain the boost at top level any time you want.
When you first start out in Drake hollow, the camp seems bare and desolate of life, but once you start closing in on the 40 Drake limit, everything starts coming to life around your base teeming with cute Drakes all over the place.
While Drake Hollow isn’t the most action-packed game I have ever played, watching the Drakes come to camp and building up my camp to meet their needs has been a really enjoyable experience, more so than I had anticipated.
