Today we talk about a game with an interesting principle that I’ve rarely seen before: “SteamWorld Build” combines a basic supply chain simulation with mine exploration and tower defense elements. What sounds like a very wild mix was available on GamePass, so we gave it a try. You can read how I liked it here.

From the outside, “SteamWorld Build” looked like a normal building game: you build roads and houses, mine resources with special buildings and produce all sorts of goods in factories to keep the residents happy – we’ve seen it all so far. The only obvious peculiarity so far: we don’t play people, but robots.

These robots start out as simple workers and now have to earn a living: we start chopping wood to be able to build more buildings. They produce water and build repair shops and grocery stores to meet basic needs. Once they have achieved full satisfaction as workers, we can improve them: simple workers become engineers. These have new needs in addition to the basic ones. Once all of these have been fulfilled, they can become aristocrats and then scientists – these then represent the final stage of development.

For the respective work in the buildings, you also need a type of robot: for the simple work in the sawmill, workers are enough, for the work on fuel you need at least scientists. The only thing that has to be right is the number of available units – the allocation to the free workstations is handled automatically.

The path from simple worker to scientist is not easy, but very worthwhile: we get better buildings and roads, and access to new areas – not on the surface, but in the mine.

To understand this, we have to circle back a bit, because unlike many similar representatives of this genre, the game has a real and beautifully told story as kind of a framework. We are a group of robots wandering the last, wasted remnants of the planet. At some point we meet an old, broken robot who tells us about a rocket, which we can build from parts that were created by an ancient civilization and are now resting in a mine underground. The aim of the game is to recover all the parts and refuel the rocket in order to be able to escape from the used up earth at the end.

The story is beautifully told, but never intrusive. A total of six rocket parts can be found, two of them on each level of the mine (which logically extends over three levels). For each new level we need further development of the robots – so that is our motivation to advance society above Earth.

Now underground, you have to clear away sand and stone and find the pieces, as well as activate the elevator to the next lower level. The Mine and the surface go hand in hand – we find rare metals in the mine, which in turn can be processed into tools on the survace that we need for the next rock layers in the mine.

From the second level onwards, a tower defense mechanic also comes into play. There are some not particularly friendly monsters living underground that will attack us if we get too close to them. There are also whole waves of attacks that start as soon as we recover the first rocket piece on the second level. This adds a challenge to the game, but it never feels unfair – in the end we can always defend ourselves well with special weapons and special units. However, we cannot ignore it.

Overall, this combination of mechanics really impressed me. Each of the three mechanics – tower defense, society management and mine exploration ultimately contributed to us getting closer to the goal of the beautifully told (and fully voiced) story. On the one hand, this meant that every action felt meaningful, and on the other hand, there was a visible end to every playthrough – infinite games where you can optimize for hours and days definitely have their appeal – the eight or so hours of each run in this game provided a good framework, at the end of which you felt proud of having achieved something.

I only played and streamed the story on the first map – I played the other maps, of which there are currently five, privately. With every map you play through, you unlock a new building that contains a special buff – for example, one ensures that streets no longer consume resources, which is very practical. So playing through it again was not only fun, but it wasn’t 100% the same due to the new maps and the changed requirements.

Technically there isn’t much to say about the game. It looks good, it’s very fittingly underlined with beautiful music. The story is completely voiced, which leaves me with a high-quality impression. There were no crashes or bugs, which made me very happy.

I was pleasantly surprised and excited by the story particularly. I found it to be beautiful and even emotional at times – something I’ve never had before in such a game. It’s a bit predictable in places, of course, but since it’s actually only supposed to form the framework for the main game, a lot of attention to detail has been put into it. Other games can certainly learn something from this.

Building, managing and exploring in itself wasn’t too challenging, but it never got boring either. It gave you a sense of achievement through achievable goals and became more difficult and extensive at just the right pace – I can only praise the developers here too.

Overall, I can only say positive things about this game. I really enjoyed playing it and there are tons of mechanics that excited me – it would take forever to list them all. The fact that it was included in GamePass made things even better for me. I really enjoyed playing it and recommend it to anyone who is interested in the construction genre – it’s free and there’s no risk.

What do you think of the game? Was it fun to watch, have you already played it yourself or are you planning to? Join the discussion on Discord!