RimWorld: Console Edition Review
Publisher: Double Eleven| Developers: Double Eleven and Ludeon Studios| Release Date: July 25, 2022, | Genre: Procedural Survival| Reviewed On PS5
Review Code Provided by Double Eleven
RimWorld: Console Edition was developed by Double Eleven and Ludeon Studios. It was released on July 29th, 2022. The game was originally released in 2018 on Steam. This is the first time it has appeared on console and is dubbed the Console Edition.
To be honest, I am not familiar with the Survival Genre besides Metal Gear Survive, but this one is more of a simulation than anything. It is dubbed as a Storyteller Generator with top billing for Tynan Sylvester the lead designer.
With The ‘Console Edition’, we get a revamped controller interface as well as quality of life improvements that make the game extremely playable on your console of choice. This is a very mechanic-heavy game.
Rimworld is a Colony Builder and can be brutal due to the randomization of many of the game’s elements. You do get leeway with ‘The AI Storyteller’ which includes 3: The Carefully Paced Cassandra Classic, Building Oriented Phoebe Chillax, and the chaotic incarnate Randy Random. This AI system was directly inspired by Left for Dead’s AI Director.
Unlike Sandbox games like Sim City or Civilization, there are a few ‘Win’ Conditions that evolve your tech from medieval-era equipment like bladed weapons, and brick villages to a high-tech spacefaring one.
The levels are procedurally generated with familiar animals such as Wolves, Sheep, and rabbits. As well as different variances of flora, soil, and alien horrors that will hinder your survivors…survival. Besides that, you must manage people with different traits such as a survivor not willing to do medical work because of their background story, temperatures, alliances with other humans, and military protection.
The story can go in any direction. My journey had my survivor be a sniper, a medic, and one that specialized in art. This went on for about 20 hours, but with this story generation, RimWorld has a lot of replay value. It could potentially be longer since the AI will throw a lot at you.
The controls are well suited for a pad with shortcuts to highlight your party members. The only minor gripe that’s there is the tutorial which barebones as it gets and doesn’t explain some of the minutiae of the morale systems and should have more advanced tutorials with a simulated easy colony. This may be out of the dev’s scope but would be appreciated. When it comes to gameplay the more advanced stuff can be a bit cumbersome to get to.
The interface works well with a large TV with large text, and console-appropriate button prompts as well as a handy autosave system when a major event happens. The graphics themselves do get the job done and is easy to tell the status of your colony and survivors. There were no performance issues at all and haven’t experienced any crashes to the dashboard.
Overall, RimWorld: Console Edition is a great survival game even for a novice like me. It may not look a bit basic, but there’s a lot of unpredictable drama and action in this smaller title. I do recommend this.
Frederick Guese is a video creator and editor at PlayStation Haven. A QA industry vet who has worked at Respawn Entertainment, 2K Games, and Activision-Blizzard. Frederick is working on being a narrative designer, writer, editor, and video producer. You can visit his Twitter, YouTube channel, and Instagram. He’s a big fan of Hideo Kojima games and JRPGs.
