Double Eleven’s and Tynan Sylvester RimWorld Console Edition is a science-fiction storyteller and strategy game in which you’ll have to rebuild society from the ground up on a new randomly generated hostile planet. Check our RimWorld Console Edition review!
Survive on a desolate planet, grow your colony, and shape your colonists’ lives! Experience a rich and complex story generation system directed by an AI-driven Storyteller that uses your playstyle to create events – defend your colony from Pirate raiders, form complex and deep relationships between your colonists, and micromanage every aspect of their lives. Each playthrough is unique – what wild and wacky stories will you tell?
RimWorld from Tynan Sylvester has been around for some time on the PC in early access since 2013, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. After a few years of updates, it was finally fully released on PC in 2018… and the game is still regularly updated to this day! It’s now 2022, and we’re getting RimWorld Console Edition by way of Double Eleven, where you’ll be following three randomly generated characters that crash-landed on a randomly generated planet – the titular RimWorld. You’ll have to rebuild a colony from the ground up while making sure your colonists survive the adventure, harsh conditions and all.
Before diving further, it must be noted that while RimWorld is a colony-building sim at its core, the game should be seen more as a story generator experience. You can select one of three different AI Storytellers that will affect how your game will unfold – which was reminiscent of the AI in Left 4 Dead. The calmer one is Phoebe Chillax and will let you go at your own pace without too much issue. The second one is Cassandra Classic, and she will send you increasingly tense issues to deal with. The last one is Randy Random and, as you can imagine by its name, it will send unpredictable events to your colony. There are also six difficulty levels ranging from easy to what is an “unfair challenge.” I loved how each difficulty was clearly detailed and how the different AI Storytellers kept the experience fresh.
Beginning your first RimWorld run will likely prove to be an overwhelming experience. Even in the starting tutorial – which you should definitively NOT skip – I was downright impressed by how much can be done in this game, and the content feels endless! Each randomly generated world is HUGE and will take a while to explore. As you begin a new run, you’ll have to select your characters from the list of randomly generated ones. Each character has traits and skills, and those will directly affect how your next run will go, so I would recommend investing some time in selecting the best characters possible!
The colony simulator is driven by your selected AI, and you’ll want to secure the colony’s basic needs, to then expand to cooking, farming, wood chopping, and so on. You’ll also want to build defenses and arm your colonists so they can be ready when animals will attack or when hostile indigenous people will come at you – because the planets are, of course, already inhabited, so some resources are sorta spoken for!
You can also enhance your colony with scientific progress. In order to do so, you’ll have to research new technologies on the game’s research tree. You’ll begin as early as Earth’s prehistory technology as you “invent” basic things for survival. You’ll then evolve your technology with smithing and stone cutting. The next step is the discovery of electricity, and finally, you’ll be able to build a space shuttle that will allow you to leave the planet you landed on. Honestly, the technology tree is really impressive and actually covers most of the important human discoveries, so you’ll have a ton of options for how you want to drive the growth of your colony. A run in RimWorld can last anywhere from a relatively short time, if you’re really unlucky, up to a few hours. Since the game’s main focus is storytelling, there are many different conditions that could lead to you “beating” the game, but unless the stars align, you’re looking at dozens of hours of gaming in your future. And if you get dealt a very bad hand and must recover in the middle of a run? You could end up playing for years!
On the presentation side, RimWorld’s art style is unique and great looking. I was very impressed by how the world map is displayed as a globe that can be zoomed in and out to explore the areas, and even more impressed when I saw the sun rising.
The background soundtrack is also catchy and fits the game very well. One area that didn’t feel quite as good is the control scheme, which is awkward on the PlayStation 4’s DualShock controller and took some time to get used to. Selecting characters and assigning jobs to them is made by using almost all the buttons on the controller. This is usually an issue with PC to console ports, so do be aware of it.
On the trophies side, I was surprised to see a relatively short list with only 23 trophies and the Platinum, given how much content this game has to offer. There are 4 Bronze trophies, 12 Silver trophies, and 7 Gold trophies. The trophies are awarded for completing miscellaneous objectives during your campaign. If you’re looking for the Platinum, I would recommend you to check the trophies before starting a run since you’re otherwise going to miss out on some of the trophies at the start of your run. One of the trophies that will certainly challenge your skills is to finish the game in under 2.5 years on “strive to survive” or greater difficulty, so be ready!
There’s so much to do in RimWorld Console Edition, and thanks to the randomly generated nature of each run, you can play this one over and over again and find new content to help or ruin your run. It will take many runs to get the hang of things and for everything to click, but don’t let that keep you from checking this one out on PlayStation 4. I loved the game’s presentation and how the story is driven by the three different AI, with each one adjusted with the independent difficulty level. You can get RimWorld Console Edition on PlayStation 4 for $39.99 or get the RimWorld Console Edition Deluxe Edition for $54.99, which includes the Royalty DLC with even more content, adding new quests which, thanks to the procedurally generated nature of the game, will add more goals, foes, goals, rewards, helpers and world conditions into the mix, as well as having access to a ton of new gear that helps to keep the experience feeling fresh.
Disclaimer
This RimWorld Console Edition review is based on a PlayStation copy provided by Double Eleven.
