Rimworld is one of those games that I come back to time after time, year after year, and every time I'm reminded of how incredible of a game it is. Calling it a colony simulator only feels like scratching the surface of what this game truly is, but it's the closest thing we have to an accurate description. Rimworld is a unique and unforgettable experience full of dynamic storytelling opportunities. I still remember stories from my first colony all those years ago, and if you play this game, you will too.

The setting for Rimworld is tightly designed: your colonists crash land on an earth-like planet full of dangers ranging from the cannibals next door to the mechanoids looking to exterminate rebel outlaws. The DLCs have expanded the story with Empires in Royalty, horror themes in Anomaly, genetic engineering (and human mating) in Biotech, and the most unique DLC yet - Odyssey. Full of ship-building and exploration from site-to-site across the planet and into the stars above.

What Rimworld is good at is telling stories. I highly recommend turning on Commitment mode and not reloading. The story isn't over until all the colonists are dead, and oftentimes when things get bad, a great story is just about to be told. You will have stories of heartbreak, heroism, revenge, and so much more. All you have to do as a player is have some patience and the game will slowly unveil its secrets to you.

Colony management is fairly easy to set up but difficult to fully optimize. If you're a really detail-oriented person, you will find endless ways to optimize in the base game, and there are tons of Workshop mods that will enhance your experience as well. For those that aren't as detail-oriented, the game gives some simple ways to manage the workflow of your colony. There is a lot to take in for newer players, but after a few hours, you'll get the hang of it.

Speaking of the new-player experience, it definitely is a bit of a learning curve. I would recommend following the game's help tab and reading as much as you can when you first start off. If you have access to YouTube guides, there are plenty out there for almost everything in the game. The game mechanics may be numerous, but none of them are so complex that you can't get a grasp of them after some brief explanations. This is a big advantage that Rimworld has over other games in this genre.

DLCs are a hot topic. I remember back in the days where Rimworld had no DLCs and it was fantastic. Personally, I have skipped the Anomaly DLC as the themes in it don't really appeal to me, but I have picked up Royalty, Ideology, and Odyssey. I do plan to pick up Biotech as well shortly and start incorporating all of those DLCs into my colonies. I would highly recommend playing the vanilla game first and getting a colony up and running and learning the mechanics of the game before purchasing the DLCs. The DLCs add additional complexity, and while they aren't too difficult to understand, it can be a lot to add more balls into the mix when you're just trying to optimize a vanilla colony.

Support for the game has been great over the years. Ludeon Studios is a fantastic developer, and they have only made the game better as the years have gone by. There is plenty of support for Workshop mods, and you can definitely get lost in the sauce with all of the mods you can add to the game. Your mileage may vary with those, but generally, the popular mods are positive additions to the base game. I personally enjoy keeping the game light on mods, and believe me, in the past I had a mod order that was well over 100 deep. Mods are no longer filling voids in Rimworld. The voids don't exist any more. Play vanilla, it's great.

I mentioned that Colony Simulator isn't a fully accurate descriptor of this game, and I feel that it bears mentioning a few other games that have this same condition: Dwarf Fortress and Kenshi. There are others, but those are the other two that I am familiar with. Dwarf Fortress is the old school hardcore experience, and Kenshi is more of an exploration-type version of these kind of games. In any event, Rimworld slots right in among those games, yet stands alone in a few key areas, and justifies why you should own it. Rimworld is a more accessible game than either Kenshi or Dwarf Fortress in terms of the UI, it's a lot tighter focused than Kenshi, and isn't nearly as overwhelming as Dwarf Fortress.

Lastly, I want to discuss the Steam Deck and how it plays. Let me get to the point: it's DANGEROUS. This game runs and plays beautifully on the Steam Deck. As a father, the Steam Deck allows me to play video games again more consistently, and yeah, I'm hooked on Rimworld again with my Steam Deck being the primary contributor. You don't need a mouse to enjoy it on the Deck, but it wouldn't hurt to get one either. It's fully playable without one and I haven't used a mouse yet on the Deck. I do miss having the keyboard hotkeys, but I can probably configure the controls a little differently to get those hotkeys back if I really wanted to.

Rimworld is a joy of a game. Buy it.

Grade: A+, an all-time classic.