It took me the best part of a month to come back to Stela in order to finish this review. I’m glad I did, as it still had some astonishing sights left to show me. But it was a close call.
I liked it! More than I expected to like it. But at the same time, after six hours of it, I’ve had enough.
Here is a completely unhyped, completely straightforward expansion – in the old-school sense of the term – that adds a few strong new systems to the game, as well as a whole bunch of new variables to feed into its various narrative generation mechanics. And thanks to the endlessly repeatable, emergence-focused creature that RimWorld is, it’s enough to completely refresh your sense of compulsion, even if you felt you’d done it all to death with RimWorld 1.0.
Genesis strolled down the street of things that made ARK magic despite its faults, and smugly posted a cat turd through every letterbox.