SteamWorld Build Reviews

Hmm. Finally finished the first play-through. Not sure why I immediately started on a second play-through, but I did, and it was way quicker, yet exactly the same. The story can be skipped on the replay, which is good coz I had absolutely no idea what was going on. The mechanics are fine, but that's pretty much all there is. I really don't know why I was playing, other than it was engineered that way.

⛏️ SteamWorld Build – A Steampunk City Builder with a Twist ⛏️ SteamWorld Build takes the charm of the SteamWorld series and merges it with city-building and dungeon-mining mechanics, creating a unique blend of resource management, exploration, and strategy. If you love games like Anno or SimCity but want something fresh and quirky, this one’s worth a look. 🏗️ Gameplay: Build Above, Dig Below Your goal is to create a thriving steampunk town while simultaneously digging deep underground to uncover lost technology and resources. Above ground, you’ll manage housing, industry, and trade, ensuring your robotic citizens (SteamBots) are happy. Below ground, you’ll send teams to mine valuable materials while dealing with hazards lurking beneath the surface. The dual-layered gameplay keeps things interesting and forces you to balance expansion with survival. ⚙️ Depth & Challenge: Accessible but Engaging Unlike overly complex city-builders, SteamWorld Build keeps things intuitive without sacrificing strategy. Managing resources, worker needs, and underground exploration requires planning, but it never feels overwhelming. It’s the kind of game that’s easy to pick up but rewarding to master. 🎨 Graphics & Sound: Full of Personality The steampunk aesthetic is colorful, detailed, and full of life. The quirky robotic citizens add charm, and the animations make the world feel dynamic. The music and sound design fit the theme perfectly, making the experience even more immersive. ⚖️ Final Verdict: 8.5/10 – A City Builder with a Fun Twist SteamWorld Build successfully combines city management and underground mining into a fun, engaging experience. It’s accessible enough for newcomers but has enough depth to keep strategy fans hooked. If you enjoy creative, well-designed building games with a unique twist, this is one to check out.

The game does a pretty nice mix of ANNO like city building, with dungeon keeper like mine building, and is really themed well as a SteamWorld game. It's pretty shallow in all of the areas, so don't go in expecting a super in depth game, but what is here is fun, and I would recommend it if either of those two games are of interest to you.

Half city building, half dungeon keeping, easy to pick up as the tutorial is very well done. Can be repetitive but the different maps offer a great deal of build diversity and that kept it fresh for me. The themes are very well done, beautiful even when you zoom in and see the little details on the maps. Some tips - building dont have to have an arrow facing a road to work, and if you have the mechanized dlc movable blocks are useful for many things other than opening.

It's cute, it's a combo city builder and RTS, it's easy to pick up and moderately easy to master. I look forward to playing other games from the developer.

A lovely little chilled out city builder with underground mine levels dug out Dungeon Keeper style. The city building is nice and relaxing - nothing to strenuous. A mix of residential, service and production buildings. The residential are upgraded through the 4 levels of steambots and each tier needs new services and goods. The base resources of which are mostly found in the mine and each level matches to the current tier of steambot so it keeps it nice and streamlined. There's no Disasters or anything like that - i think the only fail condition might be running out of money but thats not really an issue even on Hard as the residential buildings tend to bring in more than enough money. The production chains aren't overly onerous with nothing needing more than 4 or 5 steps at the most complicated and the warehouse system (every warehouse shares the resource pool, but can only deliver a limited number of things at once to a certain distance) means you can use space efficiently without worrying that suddenly you need something on the other side of the map. The mine itself requires you to create rooms of various bots (miners, guards etc) and facilities (workshop, Armoury) so that you can slowly dig out and reveal the resources you need. Levels 2 and 3 also introduce enemies that can spawn and Hives that will send large numbers of enemies every so often. I've been playing with the Mechanised DLC that adds Mechs to the mine levels that can move blocks, flicks switches and help in combat as well. Theres a small amount of meta progression as each map (of around 8) that you complete unlocks a landmark building for future maps that gives a nice bonus (free roads, smaller rooms needed in mine etc) in all a very fun little game that i found to be very relaxing when i just wanted to chill out for a bit.

A simplified version of Anno with not much replayability. Still enjoyable for its price.

I really enjoyed the game.. cozy yet thrilling challenges to make your own city structure more lovely and organizing them into a community

It's a combination between anno and dungeon keeper, if you like them you'll like this. Quite short and hand holding, but overall I enjoyed my time

while the city management itself is really fun in this game, it overstays it's welcome in a lot of ways, money and space management are gonna be your biggest roadblocks in this game, the underground mines are really fun and the highlight of the game in general, specially with the DLC, as it just adds more complexity to them i'd definitely recommend it but with how long every run takes, unless you are really into the gameplay loop you'll be satisfied after your first successful run