What I was unprepared for is just how beautiful the game is. It’s a puzzle with constantly shifting goals that makes you repeatedly realize what you just built was stupid and inefficient because you’ve already thought of a better way to do it.īilling it as a 3D Factorio is partially accurate, but that description sells it short. Finding what you need, mining or extracting it, and combining resources to make new things depends upon exploration and the construction of smelters and manufacturing units linked by pipes, conveyor belts, and power lines. You're tasked with building a gigantic machine to suck the resources out for a soulless corporation. Set in a vague, dystopian future, Satisfactory drops you on an alien planet. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.
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com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). Updated December 2021: Added Satisfactory, Jurassic World Evolution 2, and Timberborn. As the kids have grown, I’ve found myself with a little more time to scratch that management and building itch, and these are the games that have sucked me back in.Ī note for potential players: While there are often console versions, you tend to get better controls and greater depth if you play on PC. These games are the perfect foil to multiplayer madness, offering a table of absorbing escapism for one. I built impregnable castles in Stronghold, and I sank days into Game Dev Story-a game about making games. My villainous lairs in Dungeon Keeper 2 and Evil Genius were beyond compare. I ran a studio in The Movies, managed a menagerie in Zoo Tycoon, and constructed the pyramids in Pharaoh. I spent countless days building in Sim Tower, SimCity, and Theme Park.
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If the beavers are going to do better than the humans they outlived, then they can’t repeat the same sustainability mistakes.Before kids and other responsibilities, when I regularly gamed into the wee hours, playing management sims was one of my favorite things to do. That type of situation is pretty devastating when the entire settlement is built out of timber. While there doesn’t seem to be any natural predators in the post-apocalyptic landscape, the city is under constant threat from seasonal droughts and opposing beaver factions. If you need metal, then you scavenge it from the fallen human ruins.
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True to beaver ingenuity, you can build unique dams, waterways, canals, and floodgates. The trailer shows off a gardening mechanic, forestry, industry, vertical buildings, and the ability to terraform the earth using bombs. Having to keep beaver residents alive adds another layer of high narrative stakes. According to the Steam reviews and the trailer video, they can even swim in the rivers. But Timberborn offers an important addition that most other games don’t: adorable beavers with floppy tails. Like most settlement building games, you collect resources, ensure that your residents are housed and fed, and expand your city. Timberborn takes place in a setting where human civilisation ended and the beavers have taken over. Timberborn is a city builder simulation game with an unusual twist: You’re building a settlement for beavers.