SteamWorld Build Reviews Point to a Worthwhile City-Builder
While city-builders have always been quite a niche genre, they have been receiving more recognition in recent years. From Cities: Skylines and the success of projects like Frostpunk, it’s clear that there’s a substantial gaming audience who want to construct their living spaces from the ground up. One game series that you may not expect to take a foray into this genre, however, is SteamWorld. The series is known for its genre-swapping, from metroidvania entries like SteamWorld Dig to classic JRPG inspired SteamWorld Quest. However, Build looks to be the most unique yet.
Image by Thunderful Games
By introducing an innovative city building mechanic of multiple layers above and below ground, players will be able to grow their structures and towns vertically as opposed to just on a single plane. This, in combination with the charming SteamWorld artstyle and world design, has left most critics impressed with the end product here. As of today (which is when the game is set to release), its sitting at a 77 on Opencritic, with 78% recommending that you play it. That’s a strong score and is yet another hit for the consistently great franchise.
One review site that was especially impressed was TheSixthAxis- who considered the game to be great with an 8/10 score. They praised it with the following:
“SteamWorld Build will scratch that itch of town builder and dungeon crawler alike. It's an easy game to pick up and play, gradually introducing each layer of society and underground mining at a steady pace. A few elements could be improved to help levels flow better, but overall it's a very good experience that digs up yet another new genre for the SteamWorld franchise.”
The mixing of city builder and dungeon crawler was also a hit with GamesRadar+, who are yet again impressed with the series’ ability to apply itself to any genre:
“SteamWorld Build is proof that the SteamWorld formula can be applied to almost any genre with its mix of city building and dungeon mining combining for quite the treat.”
Image by Thunderful Games
So, while nothing really ground-breaking, the new ideas introduced to the genre and series with this SteamWorld Build seem worth checking out. If you’re already a city-builder fan, this is worth picking up according to critics and, if you’re not too familiar with the genre, this could be the perfect first game to get you invested. What makes this better is that its coming today to Game Pass on PC and the Xbox consoles- meaning there’s no excuse to not give it a go if you have any Game Pass subscription.
