The Colonists | Xbox Review

Real time strategy isn’t a genre I tend to dabble in too much. Mostly due to the fact that I’m not a PC gamer, and games of this type are better suited for mouse and keyboard. That said, I’ve experienced my share of games of this sort. Developed by Codebyfire and published by Auroch Digital, The Colonists continues the real time strategy traditions that inspired it. Including such classics as the Age of Empires series and The Settlers, it features easy to pick up & play mechanics, with a relaxing atmosphere about adorable Wall•E like robots.

Humans Need Not Apply

In terms of a narrative, there isn’t much story told in The Colonists beyond a simple premise. Sometime in the future, mankind has developed advanced robots that eventually gain sentience. These newly enlightened bots wish to free themselves from the shackles of indentured servitude. Rather than deciding to annihilate us Terminator style, they instead commandeer a spacecraft and wish to make a new home on another planet.

There is a campaign mode beginning with two maps giving the player a basic yet intuitive tutorial. Once the training wheels are off, the levels split into two gameplay styles. Peaceful mode, where it’s just you and the open world with no external threats to worry about. Competitive mode is where you’ll be building your colony against an AI-controlled rival colony somewhere else on the map. I highly suggest playing the tutorial levels as they do a superb job in showing you the ropes, along with how well the developers optimized the game for use with a standard controller.

In addition to the campaign, there’s also a challenge mode. These consist of simple scenarios each with their own unique objective, which must be obtained in a certain amount of time. The real meat of the game (and where I spent most of my time) is in the sandbox mode. It’s here where you can adjust basic settings, choose peaceful or competitive options, or change game parameters like cost-free and instant building.

Rise, Robots. Rise!

Each game starts with a simple animation of a rocket ship touching down on an unexplored Earth-like planet. Several different maps exist in game; from island chains, resource rich valleys, to baron deserts. Each map presents their own sets of challenges in terms of geography and resource availability. Once the rocket ship touches down, the first few worker bots disembark and begin unloading some basic supplies to help get you started. From there you must start constructing your colony with various building types.

You begin with simple structures like lumberjack huts to gain wood, mineshafts to extract stone and other minerals, along with food and water production. As you progress, more buildings and technologies become available through research and development. Unlike the Age of Empires games, the resources you gather don’t go into an overall collective to use at your leisure. Here in The Colonists, the materials need to be physically carried to their intended destinations. How quick and easy it gets there depends on the placement of your road network. 

There are also military buildings available for defense against rival colonies when playing on a competitive map, and production facilities to create more elaborate materials to build more unique structures. Luckily, there’s no need to micromanage and assign tasks to each individual worker bots. That’s all done automatically and the game will spawn the appropriate robot type depending on the task at hand.

Sights and Sounds

Visually, The Colonists looks good. It’s vibrant, colorful, and cartoon-looking. For an indie game like this, that’s all it really needs to be. Quite frankly having realistic, state-of-the-art graphics would clash against the peaceful tone this game is going for. That said, I did encounter a few hiccups and framerate slowdowns every once in a while. Sometimes game assets won’t appear and I’m often greeted with empty menu screens. As for the slowdowns, that only happens when the game gets really busy while there are lots of animations happening at once.

In terms of audio, the music is relaxing and unintrusive. Just some light contemporary, upbeat, happy-go-lucky music that fits with the relaxing nature. The best comparison I can think of would be the Yoshi’s Wooly World soundtrack. The robot sounds are also cute and adorable, combining the beeps and boops of R2-D2 with the emotes of Wall•E.

Command & Conquer? More like Relax & Chill

Overall, this is a great little title that is absolutely worth your time. But it’s not without its flaws. For one, sometimes the game isn’t crystal clear about how to remedy situations like clogs in the supply chain. Also, sometimes robots will take the most inefficient routes when bringing materials to a destination, despite having a good road network. It can be a tad frustrating when that happens, but it just goes to show that the more complex a machine, the more moving parts that are liable to break. I highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys the real time strategy genre and I’ll certainly be playing The Colonists well beyond writing this review. It’s perfect for those times you need a good wind down game after a hard day.

To hear me talk more about The Colonists, be sure to listen to Episode 345 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 1:04:28 time stamp.

This review is based on an Xbox One copy of The Colonists provided by SuperIndie.Games for coverage purposes. It is also available on PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and PC/Mac.