While RimWorld has been available on PC for a number of years, Konsoleros are still awaiting implementation. But we don’t have to be patient for very long, as a joint statement by developer Ludeon Studios and publisher Double Fine has now made clear.
Accordingly, the so-called Console Edition of “RimWorld” will be released on July 29 for PS4 and Xbox One. We are then spoiled for choice between the Standard Edition for $39.99 and the Deluxe Edition, which costs $15 more. The latter includes the Royalty DLC, which can also be purchased separately.
“RimWorld” is a sci-fi colony simulation run by an intelligent storyteller AI. Significant inspirations are Dwarf Fortress, Firefly, FTL and Dune.
You start with three survivors who have just crash-landed on a distant planet.
- Build buildings where they can sleep, eat and live.
- Plant food and dig rooms in the mountain.
- Fight or join forces with native tribes, other cities and pirates.
- Trade with passing ships and merchants.
- Plan and decorate your colony and turn it into a livable place.
- Defend yourself against raiders and voracious creatures. (Pay special attention to squirrels!)
- Survive storms and fight fires.
- Rescue other survivors or prisoners and get them on your side; or sell them into slavery.
“RimWorld” is a story generator. It was designed to tell tragic, surprising, and triumphant tales of captive pirates, desperate colonists, famine, and survival. The whole thing works by feeding you “random” events from the world. Every thunderstorm, every pirate raid and every passing trader is a card played by the storyteller AI for your story. “RimWorld” has multiple storyteller AIs to choose from. On the one hand, there’s pure coincidence, which just does crazy things, Cassandra Klassik, on the other hand, keeps the tension constantly rising and with Phoebe Chillout only good things happen. So if you want to experience a different kind of story, just choose a different narrator.
Your colonists are not professional settlers. They are crash-landed survivors from a passenger spacecraft that was destroyed in orbit. It can happen that your story begins with a nobleman, an accountant and a housewife. Over time, new colonists will be added by taking prisoners and bringing them to your side, buying slaves from a slave trader, or taking in refugees. In any case, your colony will always consist of a motley crew of very different people.
Each person has a history that drives their behavior. A nobleman, for example, will do very well in the social sphere (recruiting prisoners, negotiating prices with traders, etc.) but will refuse to do physical work. A simple-minded farmer knows very well how to grow food, but is absolutely useless as a researcher. Here again, a science nerd is the ideal person, but one better not to consult in social negotiations. Then there is the genetically modified contract killer, who can do nothing but kill others. However, it will be very difficult to find someone better in this area.
The game generates a complete planet from the pole to the equator. You can choose to land your escape pods in the northern tundra, in a parched desert, in a temperate deciduous forest, or perhaps in the sweltering heat of a rainforest. Each area has different flora and fauna, different diseases, temperatures and rainfall, as well as different resources and terrain types. As you can imagine, the challenges of a disease-ridden, suffocating jungle are very different from those of a parched desert wasteland or a frozen tundra with only a two-month growing season.
Wounds, infections, prostheses and chronic diseases are registered for each body part individually and affect the person’s abilities. Injuries to the eye make it difficult to aim a gun or even operate on someone. Wounded legs ruin a race. Hands, heart, liver, kidneys, stomach, fingers, feet, toes… All of these and more can be injured, infected or missing. And it will all have a logical implication. Other species have their own body structure.. Shoot a deer’s leg off and it may still try to run away on the remaining three!
You can replace body parts with prosthetics ranging from the primitive to the superlative. A peg leg allows Joe Colonist to walk again after his unfortunate incident with a rhinoceros, albeit at a slow pace. Buy him an expensive bionic leg from a retailer next year and Joe will become a superhuman runner. You can also run a thriving organ trade by extracting and selling internal organs, or by buying them and implanting them.
