Game: SteamWorld Build
Genre: Simulation, Strategy
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam, (Windows), PS5 & PS4, Xbox Series X\S)
Developers | Publishers: The Station | Thunderful
Age Rating: US E10+ | EU 7+
Price: US $29.99 | UK £24.99 | EU € 29,99
Release Date: December 1st, 2023
Review code used, with many thanks to Plan of Attack.
One thing I’ve always liked about the SteamWorld series is its unwillingness to settle on one genre. For instance, SteamWorld Dig 2 is a platform mining adventure, SteamWorld Heist is a turn-based strategy game, and SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamesh is a card-based mecha-fantasy RPG. All these games work because they are equally well-thought-out and fun.
SteamWorld Build is the latest instalment in the ever-changing series. It’s a city-builder game where players create a thriving town around a train station that acts as a trading post. Though in classic SteamWorld fashion, it doesn’t just stop there as underground mining and a spaceship exist.
Build a City In SteamWorld Build
When you begin a new game in SteamWorld Build, you can choose between the following locations: Giddyup Gorge, Highroller Dunes, Grand Gully, Tumbleton, and Fossil Park.
While the storyline is the same no matter what location you choose, it’s great that there is a choice, and it is also useful for the sandbox mode to choose different locations. You can also change the difficulty levels to casual, balanced and difficult.
SteamWorld Build’s Story
The storyline in SteamWorld Build has the usual humour between the characters, which is notable in all the SteamWorld games. You play as Jack and Alice Clutchsprocket, a grandpa and granddaughter duo who act as the managers for your town.
Under the ever-watchful eye of Gunn-Britt Gildenwire, the Clutchsprockets must manage the population, expand the town and explore underground to find ancient technology. Guided by Core, an ancient talking robot, you must use the technology you discover to build a spaceship, leave the dying planet, and find a new home amongst the stars.
Build and Grow a City
You must grow the SteamWorld Bot population by building sufficient housing and infrastructure to manage the basic needs of workers.
Doing so includes building foresters for wood and charcoal, cactus farms, a shop for supplies and maintaining the train station for trade and travel. You must also ensure that all the buildings you construct are connected by road to the train station. That adds a little puzzle element to SteamWorld Build as you have to decide the best way to build your city’s infrastructure.
Furthermore, you can explore the surrounding map to assist your city building and find robotic tumbleweeds that can be clicked on for extra loot. Loot such as money, wood and charcoal are all up for grabs.
SteamWorld Bots
SteamWorld Build is populated with Bots. Bots carry resources, bots that work in the mine, mechanic bots, prospectors bots that extract precious ores and fighting bots. However, you only start the game with one type of Bot. You build their houses, and once all their needs are met, you can upgrade the house to the next tier, which brings in different Bots.
There are four classes of citizen Bots, from standard workers to engineers. There are also posh Bots, named aristobots and even scientists. Furthermore, each type of Bot requires many different facilities to operate in your city to keep them happy. For example, worker Bots like to have a supply shop nearby, whereas scientist Bots like a saloon.
The Mines
Eventually, the storyline leads you to restore a nearby abandoned mine shaft, which will give you your first major clue about what kind of ancient tech you’re after, and it also gives you access to the mines down below your city. Once you dig underground, a new layer of responsibilities and exploration opportunities opens up.
In the mine, you set up a miner’s quarter to send miners to dig and uncover precious materials, gold, ores, and, most importantly, old rocket parts to help you get off the planet. Furthermore, finding gold nuggets and tools helps the production flow, but you’ll also be able to build factories that mass produce tools above ground. You can also speed up the work by building conveyor belts that give the bots encouraging jolts of electricity to move resources quickly to the city.
You’ll also set up guard quarters as something dark and creepy lurks in the mines as the miners need protection.
The mining requires as much management as the building of the city above, as you will need to gather resources and take on enemies that pop up.
Unique Gameplay Loop
While the city and the mine are separate places, each with a unique gameplay loop, they are intertwined. While the town features traditional city-builder gameplay, the mines are much more hands-on and chaotic and even have a touch of real-time strategy as you plot your way around the mine.
Each half of your SteamWorld Build settlement serves completely different purposes, but how they feed into and rely on each other means you must constantly monitor both progress and performance.
Furthermore, it’s a lovely gameplay loop and, sometimes, a sense of urgency adds an action element to the typically slower-paced, city-builder genre. There’s a lot to get your head around, but the more you stick at it, the more satisfying the flow of gameplay becomes.
Unlike the other SteamWorld games in the series, the storyline in SteamWorld Build didn’t grip me, though that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. That could be due to how the storyline is fed to the player; since the game is city builder and the storyline is intermittently told through cutscenes, there are a lot of gaps between each time the storyline moves on.
Visuals and Controls
Graphically, SteamWorld Build looks great on the Nintendo Switch. I like the choice of different environments in which to build a city. The city is bright and colourful, whereas the mines are the complete opposite. Dank and dark with falling rocks, it is sometimes not a safe place to be, especially for the Steambot miners. The music is really toe-tapping and suits the environment in which the game is set.
Furthermore, you’ll know you are playing a SteamWorld game from the added touch of the ratcheting sounds as you move around the UI right down to the blueprint art style on the menus and the cute robot workers clanking back and forth from one building to another. There is no mistaking that you are playing a SteamWorld game.
The controls on the Nintendo Switch feel intuitive and work smoothly, and I’ve no complaints about them.
Conclusion
SteamWorld Build is a delightful game where you always work towards interesting goals. The combination of city building and mining work in tandem together extremely well. It’s a brilliant pairing of opposites, from the bright sunshine on the surface to popping into the mine, which is dank and dark, with the SteamWorld aesthetic tying it all together.
Final Verdict: TwoThumbs Up