![]() Heck, I even got a kick out of wibbling and wobbling would-be building outlines as I dragged them across the map with my mouse. The buildings themselves have a lot of personality to them as well, with giant sawmills tearing up logs, individual cacti getting pulverised for water, and the looming proprietors of each saloon hovering over the entrance like a chrome-plated Al Swearengen. Every time you zoom in to admire your town's busy streets, you'll find them thrumming with charmingly animated robots of all stripes, from scurrying couriers to swaggering cowbots and even those who disappear inside the rotating brushes of a conveyor car wash. There's still a lot of joy to be had within these limitations, I should stress. All the buildings are the same regardless of which map you pick, and the milestones you need to reach to unlock newer upgrades play out the same way every time. Grand Gully is perhaps the most ambitious of the lot, with a Grand Canyon-esque gorge separating its two halves, but beyond the slightly different shapes of terrain, the rhythms of building up your town are the same every time. ![]() Some old timey movie drive-ins here, some legally distinct Jurassic Park gates and dino bones there, or maybe you prefer a smattering of neon casino signs pointing to nowhere. Indeed, having played on all five of Build's maps (which are all unlocked right at the start), they really just boil down to the same fundamental setting - an orange desert either at night or during the day - with some incidental dressing to give each one a mild bit of flavour. Still a worthwhile Game Pass candidate, no doubt, but its main problem is familiarity. I suspect the more wizened citybuilders among you will probably find that SteamWorld Build doesn't have quite enough bite to hold your attention past an initial playthrough. Manage cookie settings Have a listen to some of our earlier thoughts on SteamWorld Build back when it was announced at the start of 2023. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The stakes, then, are quite low, which is probably a good indication of whether you'll get on with SteamWorld Build, and how much you'll get out of it. You won't go bankrupt, you won't get turfed out for being incompetent, and you definitely won't see any kind of game over screen if the aforementioned nasties end up running amok in your mining levels. If the scales do get thrown out of equilibrium, the worst that will happen is you get lots of angry little red robot faces appearing above your houses. This is a game that's more concerned with keeping your economy running like a well-oiled, uhh, machine than turning a profit, for example, and it merely dips its toe in the genre's wider, ongoing obsession with building up defences to fend off oncoming hordes of malicious town hall-eating nasties. ![]() Now, a decade later, SteamWorld Build has reimagined Dig's core ideas as a handsome citybuilder, placing equal focus on managing your rustbucket town up top, while plundering its depths via an abandoned mineshaft to find treasure, resources and (most importantly) rocket parts, so you can escape your crumbling planet and find a new homestead up in the stars.ĭespite the threat of annihilation hanging over the horizon, however, SteamWorld Build is one of the most relaxed and easy-going building games I've ever played. When Image & Form first released their 2D digging platformer back in the depths of 2013, its moreish loop of carving out rocky chasms, finding gems and treasure, then upgrading your pickaxe and burgeoning township back on the surface was instantly captivating, and its 2017 sequel continues to be one of my favourite platformers of all time. ![]() In another lifetime, SteamWorld Dig could have easily ended up as SteamWorld Build.
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