583 people found this review helpful
7 people found this review funny
3
6
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 1,700.6 hrs on record (186.5 hrs at review time)
Posted: 18 Sep, 2018 @ 2:46pm

Early Access Review
I've played RimWorld for easily over 1000 hours aside from the 160+ hours on record for my account, I really should have reviewed it sooner since I've played it so long, but I never got around to it, so this'll include my experience in the game, what's good and bad, and everything you'd likely need to know before getting it.

To jump to my conclusion: This game is fantastic if you like build a colony from the ground up, it's very interactive and you'll always have something to do, be it planning a new room for your base, building up defenses, creating a more reliable food source or even raiding enemy factions. At first it's very daunting as there is a lot to get used to, but each new discovery comes with a new way to experience the game, your story is always your own and it'll never be the same as before, lending this game to nigh-infinite replayability, and that's not even considering mods which are abundant, relatively easy to make yourself and very active. The developers constantly revise and improve aspects of the game improving it more and more as time passes, even your own ideas may be implemented if they're good additions to the game. The community is one of the best I've seen, where people joke around, share their playthroughs and wacky happenings whilst generally having a good time. I recommend this game if you like strategy, tackling positive/negative turn of events, planning things, and sandbox style survival games. If you're still on the fence for buying the game, watch a 'lets play' video and see madness that can occur, check out all the mods that are available and imagine the possibilities, it really is a great game.

Art 8/10: The art style is quite minimalistic, at first it may be a turn-off but the style works well with the gameplay, with the attention you need to pay to so many things on screen it's good that the textures aren't complex, as it'd strain your eyes, whereas this style is soft on the eyes and doesn't impede the gameplay, things represent what they're meant to be, and it's surprisingly easy to get immersed into the game with the simplistic graphics.

Story 10/10: This game is both heart breaking and hilarious, there is no set story, so things can go in any direction, you could have a trader caravan arrive to sell items just as a raid occurs, causing a massively shoot out between two major groups just outside your base, after which you can mop up all their valuables and turn their corpses into meals and skin, maybe for that human leather hat you've always wanted. Perhaps you start brewing beer only to have one of your pets drink some and get addicted to alcohol. Story is incredibly well done in this game, and with how fun it can be I'm surprised lots of other games don't use the same style.

Sound 6/10: The sound is basic like the art, the sounds work for their intended purposes, there's nothing spectacular to talk about nor is there anything unique, the sound it has is right, but it's not something the game is well known for and isn't made to contribute a lot to the game.

Gameplay 8/10: There are different types of games so I'll elaborate, for the style of game this is (a sci-fi colony sim) I'd say the gameplay is near perfect, and it can be perfected to a player's liking with mods, a lot of features from popular mods are incorporated into the game over time so the base game's gameplay will get even better over time. Things are placed using the UI at the bottom of the screen, and your colonists with build them if they have the resources, they can get the resources from your setting up of work orders (like cutting down trees, mining rocks, butchering animals, harvesting plants and various other ways). It's almost like you're the architect of a colony, telling them what needs to be done and when it needs to be done, it's quite nice as luck is a big factor, but foresight allows you to somewhat control your luck, and mitigate disaster, there's little that's more satisfying than diverting misfortune with a well thought out plan.

Mods 9/10: Mods are very good for this game, some change the game entirely (like changing the space-cowboy style theme to that of Lord of the Rings, Medieval, WW2 era and many others), whilst others change / add to the games features and tools, allowing for you to adjust anything you don't like into something you do like, and the modding community is quite active, if there's a good idea for a mod then it's likely already made, If you choose to buy it then I recommend trying the base game without mods first, as whilst they add a lot to the game, they also take away from the main theme, playing it without mods will help you understand the fundamentals a lot quicker.

Overall 9/10: The features individually would make the game an 8.2/10, but how they come together makes it a 9/10 for me, since RimWorld is the best game of it's type, I've looked long and hard for other games like it, and Prison Architect is the only game similar, but to me it doesn't have the random glory that RimWorld has. RimWorld is certainly worth £30, hell it's worth £50+ to me since I've got so much entertainment out of it, other games you may play for 200, maybe 300 hours, but this is one of those games which you can sink months into, and games like that are worth buying.

Thanks for reading my review if you did, I don't often write reviews but this game is just so good that I can't help but share my opinion.
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12 Comments
mattpike 15 Feb, 2025 @ 5:45am 
@TacticalBoop Did you not know that games exist in places other than Steam?

According to Steam, I have 50 hours in Age of Empires 3. In reality, I have well over 2000 hours. I bought it on disk and had every civilisation levelled up to at least 50. Then I bought a new computer and wasn't able to transfer my save data properly. So I had to level them all back up again. That takes a LOT of Skirmish maps to do. Then I bought the Definitive Edition on Steam. They changed the way the shipment cards worked and I didn't bother with it after playing the campaigns.

Same thing happened with Titan Quest. Bought it on disk, played through it with about a dozen different character builds. Bought the Immortal Thrones expansion version and played through with another dozen or so characters. Then I bought it on Steam and haven't played it as much.

Again, same thing with Supreme Commander. Played for hundreds of hours on the disk version before buying it on Steam.
undefined 29 Jun, 2024 @ 5:43am 
Thank you for posting a real review and not just your "story". Sometimes Steam reviews can actually be helpful and useful.
Person012345 6 Jul, 2023 @ 12:58am 
@Your Uncle Justin You're just wrong. "Good" doesn't mean "hyper realistic 20 trillion megapixel slow your game to 3 fps". Graphics serve a function. Rimworld is aesthetically pleasing and the graphics let you know what is happening. They are good graphics. They're not supposed to be realistic. Sorry if this hurts your fee-fees when you pay $70 for a ♥♥♥♥ game with the most ultra-gritty realistic graphics ever so you can boast about them but there are a lot of games that on paper have much higher fidelity graphics than rimworld but end up looking a lot lot worse, which isn't good graphical design.
Aeli 2 Jun, 2022 @ 1:56pm 
This and many other recommendations like it is the reason I am about to buy this game. Thank you for the recommendation and I cant wait to play the game for myself.
ci6 10 Jul, 2021 @ 12:09am 
woah
BtcSimmer 3 Mar, 2019 @ 7:46am 
Can only agree good review though the sound id give a solid 7 the music is really there! He is right about the other basic sounds. For the record a fool would not believe he wouldn’t have the hours he says I have plenty of hours outside of steam myself. Thanks for the review
GanjalfTheBaked 18 Oct, 2018 @ 11:08am 
For people saying he didn't actually play Rimworld for over 1000 hours, the game was playable way before it came on Steam.
Overall I think it's a good review, I agree with the 6/10 for the sound, but I have to add that the music is really good, it has the sci-fi western-ish feel that fits the game perfectly.
JJ 18 Oct, 2018 @ 10:56am 
i mean why were you looking at his steam page anyway LUL u a spy or something LOool :B44HS:
TacticalBoop 18 Oct, 2018 @ 7:26am 
you have 214.4 hours of gameplay altogether and 6 hours of gameplay in the last week.... You're literally lying to us about having "over 1000 hours" gameplay and we can see your game time hours at the top of the page. WTF bro. Why are you lying. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH:steamhappy::steamhappy: You sleep! :steambored::steambored:
Homiccus 17 Oct, 2018 @ 11:49pm 
"I've looked long and hard for other games like it"
Can you spare some of your time to, perhaps, talk about our lord and saviour Tarn Adams, also known as Toady One?