''SteamWorld Build'' is a city-building

dungeon crawling A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinth environment (a "dungeon"), battling various monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and looting any treasure they may find. Video games a ...

video game developed by The Station and published by Thunderful Publishing. An installment in the ''

SteamWorld ''SteamWorld'' is a series of video games depicting the adventures of a race of steam-driven robots in a post-apocalyptic steampunk world. The games are developed and published by Swedish video game developer Image & Form Image & Form Internat ...

'' series, the game was released for

Windows PC Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...

PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, it was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North Ame ...

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

Xbox Series X and Series S The Xbox Series X/S are home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. They were both released on November 10, 2020, as the fourth generation Xbox, succeeding the Xbox One. Along with Sony's PlayStation 5, also released in November 2020, t ...

in December 2023.

Gameplay

''SteamWorld Build'' is a

cross-genre A hybrid genre is a literary genre that blends themes and elements from two or more different genres. Works in hybrid genres are often referred to as cross-genre, multi-genre, mixed genre, or fusion genre. Hybrid genres are a longstanding element ...

video game. The first part of the game tasks the players to construct and manage a

mining town A mining community, also known as a mining town or a mining camp, is a community that houses miners. Mining communities are usually created around a mine or a quarry. Historic mining communities Australia * Ballarat, Victoria * Bendigo, ...

on an alien planet. Players need to construct roads, infrastructure, amenities, and houses for their population. Players need to satisfy the needs of the town's residents and maintain their happiness ratings. As the player progresses, they will be able to unlock new buildings and technologies, as well as upgrading their workforce. The town's progress is measured via milestones, which is determined by the town's overall population. Once the player has sufficient materials to repair their mining shaft, the second part of the game would be unlocked. In addition to building a functioning mine, players must recruit miners to explore an old abandoned mine to look for an ancient technology that may help the player to escape the planet. In the process, they must also collect ores and other resources which can be used for the expansion of the town. The miners need to be equipped with weapons as they will need to face monsters lurking inside the mine. A larger town will attract more engineers, allowing players to recruit more miners and expand the town's mining capabilities.

Development

''SteamWorld Build'' is currently being developed by a team of 40 people in The Station, a studio owned by

Thunderful Development Thunderful Group AB is a Swedish video game holding company based in Gothenburg. It was founded in December 2019 through a merger between Thunderful AB (Bergsala Holding's video game holding) and Bergsala Holding's distribution business, consis ...

, with franchise director Brjánn Sigurgeirsson overseeing its development. ''Build'' is the first ''SteamWorld'' game not developed by the original team in Sweden. The Station was previously known for developing art and assets for ''

LittleBigPlanet ''LittleBigPlanet'' (stylized as ''LittleBIGPlanet''; abbreviated ''LBP'') is a puzzle platform video game series created and produced by British developer Media Molecule and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Most games in the series ...

'' games. Development of the game began in early 2020. Developers compared the game to the '' Anno'' series by

Ubisoft Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry'', '' ...

and the ''

Dungeon Keeper ''Dungeon Keeper'' is a strategy video game developed by Bullfrog Productions and released by Electronic Arts in June 1997 for MS-DOS and Windows 95. In ''Dungeon Keeper'', the player builds and manages a dungeon, protecting it from invading ' ...

'' series from

Bullfrog Productions Bullfrog Productions Limited was a British video game developer based in Guildford, England. Founded in 1987 by Peter Molyneux and Les Edgar, the company gained recognition in 1989 for their third release, ''Populous (video game), Populous'', ...

, though the team strived to ensure that the game's two styles of gameplay are not independent of each other. The story of the game runs parallel to that of ''

SteamWorld Dig 2 ''SteamWorld Dig 2'' is a single-player 2D platform action-adventure metroidvania video game developed and published by Image & Form. It is the fourth installment in the '' SteamWorld'' series of games and the direct sequel to 2013's ''SteamWorld ...

'' and features both new and returning characters from previous ''

'' games. In May 2022, Thunderful Development announced that they were working on four different ''SteamWorld'' games, with one of them being a city-building game codenamed "Coffee". The game was first announced in January 2023 by Thunderful as part of its "SteamWorld Telegraph" presentation. A free demo of the game was released on the same day. ''SteamWorld Build'' was released for

on December 1, 2023.

References

External links

* {{SteamWorld 2023 video games SteamWorld City-building games Dungeon crawler video games Windows games PlayStation 4 games PlayStation 5 games Nintendo Switch games Xbox One games Xbox Series X and Series S games Video games developed in Sweden Single-player video games Video games set on fictional planets Video games about robots Thunderful games