In the beginning I'll note that the game is able to create apocalyptic atmosphere for it's specific setting. Ripped away from the world and casted into frozen hell, stranded and hungry, with only marvel of the passed age standing between you and ruthless cold. Soundtrack is great and it has few gems like "The city must survive". Mechanics add to it, with diseases, discontent, hope and so on. It feels as if you were struggling to survive - at least at the beginning.

At it's core it seems to be really cramped city builder with huge focus on survival mechanics and with no real potential for sandbox playing - which itself isn't a flaw in design. Gameplay revolves around specific scenarios with specific problems and challenges that move story forward. Finished scenario usually leaves little to no space left for buildings in the city.

But to the point - the gameplay. There is always the most optimal way to play a specific scenario. For convenience let's imagine it as a curve. We'll call it the A curve. It contains all decisions player undertakes during the game. Here, depending on difficulty level, is a certain distance you can derive from the A curve [in given direction] during your game and still win (survive). If you will go beyond this treshold - you won't be able to succeed. For the standard difficulty the "tunnel" around the A curve that marks how forgiving the game is is quite wide. The problem is that at maximum difficulty it shrinks to the size of fiber-optic cable. You basically have to find out where exactly the A curve is (the hard way) and then follow it meticulously until the very end.

What I want to portray here is that the game doesn't give you many ways of solving complicated problems if you want to be challenged. You have to know the scenario and know exactly what to do and what events are going to appear and when. So the game rewards you for being a seer, not for reacting best you can to unexpected.
The example with the curve is somewhat simplified, and there may be actually even few of those. The point still stands - you have to find this exact path of maximum efficiency and stick to it.

Design of the city itself affects those curves slightly at best. What I mean is that the efficiency of our colony can be only marginally increased by well designed city outlay. The projecting side of the game is not really impactful, and the outcome of the scenario depends generally on how many specific buildings we have if anything, not where those are located.

There are also some other minor problems with gameplay, but it's whatever at this point.

In terms of lore it makes very little sense that the generators are capable of sustaining cities of only around 800 inhabitants each, especially given what it took to build them (building a generator is probably the most interesting scenario btw, it's in dlc though). Also bri'ish larping pagans because of natural disaster is as believable as fallout lore. I understand that much can be said and expected from them, but this is beyond ridiculous.


In the end, we get a game that could have been good, if development was more focused on city-sim side of the game, with more gameplay flexibility. What we've got is quite annoying survival simulator with city builder elements within it.

In the beginning I'll note that the game is able to create apocalyptic atmosphere for it's specific setting. Ripped away from the world and casted into frozen hell, stranded and hungry, with only marvel of the passed age standing between you and ruthless cold. Soundtrack is great and it has few gems like "The city must survive". Mechanics add to it, with diseases, discontent, hope and so on. It feels as if you were struggling to survive - at least at the beginning. At it's core it seems to be really cramped city builder with huge focus on survival mechanics and with no real potential for sandbox playing - which itself isn't a flaw in design. Gameplay revolves around specific scenarios with specific problems and challenges that move story forward. Finished scenario usually leaves little to no space left for buildings in the city. But to the point - the gameplay. There is always the most optimal way to play a specific scenario. For convenience let's imagine it as a curve. We'll call it the A curve. It contains all decisions player undertakes during the game. Here, depending on difficulty level, is a certain distance you can derive from the A curve [in given direction] during your game and still win (survive). If you will go beyond this treshold - you won't be able to succeed. For the standard difficulty the "tunnel" around the A curve that marks how forgiving the game is is quite wide. The problem is that at maximum difficulty it shrinks to the size of fiber-optic cable. You basically have to find out where exactly the A curve is (the hard way) and then follow it meticulously until the very end. What I want to portray here is that the game doesn't give you many ways of solving complicated problems if you want to be challenged. You have to know the scenario and know exactly what to do and what events are going to appear and when. So the game rewards you for being a seer, not for reacting best you can to unexpected. The example with the curve is somewhat simplified, and there may be actually even few of those. The point still stands - you have to find this exact path of maximum efficiency and stick to it. Design of the city itself affects those curves slightly at best. What I mean is that the efficiency of our colony can be only marginally increased by well designed city outlay. The projecting side of the game is not really impactful, and the outcome of the scenario depends generally on how many specific buildings we have if anything, not where those are located. There are also some other minor problems with gameplay, but it's whatever at this point. In terms of lore it makes very little sense that the generators are capable of sustaining cities of only around 800 inhabitants each, especially given what it took to build them (building a generator is probably the most interesting scenario btw, it's in dlc though). Also bri'ish larping pagans because of natural disaster is as believable as fallout lore. I understand that much can be said and expected from them, but this is beyond ridiculous. In the end, we get a game that could have been good, if development was more focused on city-sim side of the game, with more gameplay flexibility. What we've got is quite annoying survival simulator with city builder elements within it.