For all your big franchises, the likes of Final Fantasy and Resident Evil which have been milking the cash cow for decades now, there are a few smaller offerings, building legacies that you might not be aware of. The SteamWorld brand, for instance.
SteamWorld Dig first appeared a decade or so ago, proving to be a big hit in the indie world of games, prompting a sequel – SteamWorld Dig 2 – that landed on Xbox in 2018; equally popular and reviewed brilliantly.
But now things are going down a slightly different route with SteamWorld Build; a quiet, gentle city builder. Let’s make some memories and build some homes.
SteamWorld Build is a relaxing city builder, placing you in the SteamWorld universe. The basic premise behind the game is for you to get build a working city in the frontier of the desert, all for an army of robot workers. It has that western steampunk design behind it that will be instantly familiar, as you go about building overground and mining underground throughout the game. Like in all city builders, the story is found in the creation; it’s that which will determine how your towns and cities survive. See yourself as the god, an all-powerful creator and it’s easy to understand the draw.
Gameplay wise, SteamWorld Build has some admirable game mechanics that work well with their transition to console. Playing on Xbox Series X|S, I didn’t ever feel like I was missing a mouse here, the menus being easy to navigate and simple to get your head around. You start overground first of all, handling the simple things in life, building housing for your little robots and then roads to link them all together.
Then the services need to be put down, like general stores and supply needs. Milestones are reached as you go about upgrading your places, turning workers into engineers which then open up further buildings and the like. Your main goal will be to ensure your workers are happy and everything is running smoothly – before you go underground.
It’s the beneath-the-surface elements of SteamWorld Build that see this stand out from the myriad of other city-building sims. Here you get to build mines, gathering up additional resources. It’s easy to get your workers digging out different caves – although doing so might just unleash monsters.
It’s about here where you’ll need to start working some defences to stop yourself from being overwhelmed by those creatures. Personally, I really liked the ability to swap between the overground city and the underground world seamlessly, especially as both are integral to the other, their needs for workers and resources combining.
SteamWorld Build looks good too and I’ve appreciated the fact that it can handle multiple screens above and below ground instantly. You can zoom in and out of your maps to see the smallest of details, as well as getting an overall look at your city. The menus are clean, tidy and never feel too cluttered; again, a problem which sometimes hits city builders. It’s not going to win awards for its visuals and hasn’t the lighting effects or fidelity of some of the other contenders, but the cartoony SteamWorld design is colourful and fun.
Perhaps you shouldn’t come to SteamWorld Build looking to pile in hundreds of hours, but this is an extremely likeable, bite-sized city creating adventure. It all works very well, and only in the latter moments will you ever really feel too much tension of juggling elements.
It means that if you are after a friendly, charming sim game then SteamWorld Build should be able to deliver the adventure you’ve been looking for.
