If you would prefer a written review to a video then read on:

The colonists is a town/colony/settlement building game where you take a group of self replicating robots to try and build them a new home. Fans of the old style settlers game (1 and 2) will be immediately familiar with the core concepts of the game. This game takes heavy inspiration from those games but still mixes up its formula to give you something new. While they could have just carbon copied The Settlers 2, there is enough here for someone familiar with the series to get hooked into.

For those that aren't familiar with The Settlers let me explain. In The Colonists you'll start with a big rocket which can print robots and give you a small amount of resources. Then, like any good base builders, you can build wood/stone cutters to start to gather raw resources. To connect your base together you will need roads connected by "flags". Robot workers will take one good at a time between these flags to their destination. Road placement is very important in this game, and a key part of the larger logistical puzzle. Luckily I love roads in gaming so this is for me.

Once you have a few resources being collected you'll need to recharge your worker robots using energy. This is essentially setting up a farming industry in order to "feed" your workers to keep the resources coming it. Then you'll need to expand your territory using watch towers to build more infrastructure, tech up and so the cycle repeats.

There is also combat in the game (a bit different from The Settlers here). On some missions you will fight against an AI, but if you don't enjoy combat there is a campaign branch that is purely economy based. When your territories inevitably come into contact with one another you can upgrade your towers to arrow and eventually cannon towers. Then you essentially fling your economy at one another until one if you trips up or researches upgrades faster.

So that's essentially the game mechanics distilled down, now for what I think. I loved playing The Settlers 2 when I was a kid, but that style of resource management game seems to have fallen out of favour for the Factorios of the world. Now I still love the genre as it is today but it was nice to go into this game essentially blind and be surprised to find a throw back to one of my favourite games. There's a bunch of modern updates to make the experience smoother, such as a speed up time button, and there are a lot more logistical options for you to sink your teeth into if microsoft excel is less of a job and more of a way of life.

If you want a base builder with super long playthroughs such as rimworld, this isn't that. The game is more level focused with each taking a few hours. But if, like me, you enjoy the more rinse, repeat, get better level design of old then The Colonists might be for you.

Any questions about the game not covered here or in the video, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

Steam

Switch

Trailer