After some pretty solid additions in November, the titles coming to Xbox Game Pass for December look to continue the momentum. Remnant: From the Ashes and Remnant 2 are available on both PC and Xbox starting today while the others will be spread out over the first couple weeks of December. Both Remnant games are a ton of fun, and I'd definitely recommend checking out if you have a Game Pass subscription??.

SteamWorld Build which is a city-builder our very own Zoey "The Archite?ct" Handley feels is worth trying will be released as a Day One on Game Pass title. Blacksmith simulator WHile the Iron's Hot is also coming Day One on Gmae Pass.

There's some other very solid titles being added throughout December including Spirit of the North, Rise of the Tomb Raider, World War Z: Aftermath, Against the Storm, and Far Cry 6.

Here are all the titles ?coming to Xbox Game Pass in the first two weeks of December:

Added today to Xbox Game Pass (November 30, 2023):

• Remnant: From the Ashes (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Remnant 2 (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC)

Heading to Xbox Game Pass the week of December 1, 2023:

• Spirit of the North, December 1 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• SteamWorld Build, December 1 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Clone Drone in the Danger Zone, December 5 (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC)
• While the Iron's Hot, December 5 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• World War Z: Aftermath, December 5 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Goat Simulator 3, December 7 (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC)

Heading to Xbox Game Pass the week of December 8, 2023:

• Against the Storm, December 8 (PC)
• Tin Hearts, December 12 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Far Cry 6, December 14 (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Chialvry 2 and Totally Reliable Delivery Service are also being added to Game Pass Core on Dec??ember 6.

The post Remnant 2 headlines a solid?? December lineup for Xbox Game Pass appeared first on Destructoid.

I’m not terribly familiar with the Steamworld games, including SteamWorld Dig and SteamWorld Heist. I tried a bit of Dig, and it didn’t click with me. However, I am very familiar with city builders, so the latest game, SteamWorld Build, still got me excited.

This entry is done by a different developer The Station, whose previous work was also called The Station. So, SteamWorld Build is a bit of a departure for both the deve?loper and for the series as a whole. ;

SteamWorld Build (PC [Review], Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: The Station
Publisher: Thunderful Publishing
Released: December 1, 2023
MSRP: $29.99

The world is ending, so some of the surviving robots ?are following the instruction of a disembodied robot eye and digging into the ground to try and find rocket parts so they can leave. Rather than do it themselves, however, they’re building a settlement directly over the abandoned mine so they can attract other robots that they can send to their deaths in the cold, unfeeling earth.

SteamWorld Build feels closest to the survival city-builder genre to me, but only in terms of controls and the management of resources. There really is no survival here. There’s no real fail state, and even if you suck really badly at things, you will probably always be making progress. Really, SteamWorld Build has its own flavo?r, which works both in its favor and against? it.

Beneath that, there’s also a mining and exploration game where you direct your robots to dig through blocks of earth to try and find resources and other objectives. Dungeon Keeper kept coming to mind as I played it, and there’s maybe a splash of that in here in the sense that you hollow out areas and can build rooms. Some of the blocks you order your robots to destroy also contain ore, so there are at least ?aesthetic similarities if little else.

Really, the goal here is to build up your town, so you can get better mining gear, so you can dig deeper and get more resources for your town, so you can get even better mining gear and get to the bottom. It’s an effective way to entangle the two modes of play. You’re constantly switching between the town? and your mine, which is helped by a control scheme that makes it easy t??o get around. It feels nice.

The main flow of town building has you first plop down worker houses and have them extract resources to make products that will attract more workers. After all their needs are met, you can upgrade them to the next class of citizens and repeat the process with more and more complicated? production lines. You’re constantly building and reinforcing supply lines so you can fit more and more robots into your society and meet milestones to unlock the next level of gear and production.

Meanwhile, underground, you’ll be putting your new gear to use. You need to ensure the mine is stable, that you have enough workers, and you must create infrastructure for resource extraction. Eventually, you’ll run into monsters and other ??hazards underground and need to deal with them, but I’m fairly certain your robots can’t permanently die. They can get eaten or destroyed in battle, but I think they either get fixed by mechanics or replaced. As I said earlier, it’s a hard game to fail at. You can certainly play it worse, but I don’t think it’s possible to be so bad at it that you get stuck. Prove me wrong, I guess.

Alongside this is a storyline th?at plays out in cut?scenes. It’s�fine. I didn’t find it annoying, but I didn’t find it compelling either. On my second playthrough of the game, however, I was happy to be able to turn it off entirely. That’s a great option to have.

This is going to sound strange and ironic, but the major issue with SteamWorld Build is that it’s too mechanical and robotic. Progress is entirely linear, which is extremely strange for a city builder. With how difficult it is to fail, if a fail state exists at all, there’s ver??y little dynamism to the whole experience.

What this means is that one playthrough plays pretty much the same as anothe?r. It’s a city? builder that absolutely needs to have a narrative overlaying everything because you aren’t making one of your own. The robots under your care might as well not exist. They don’t have lives or schedules. They’re merely tools; a number that lets you know how close you are to reaching the next milestone.

After your first playthrough, any subsequent approach to the game might as well be a speedrun??. You have the skills in place, you’ve solved all the problems, and you’ve seen the story. There is no other playstyle to experiment with, and you’re just doing ?everything again, but maybe more efficiently.

As someone who loves city-builders and management games as a whole, SteamWorld Build feels alienating. It??’s a city-builder for people who don’t like city-builders.

While that’s a big problem for a genre entry, it’s not as damning as it might be. SteamWorld Build is an incredibly polished game. And while the lack of friction adds to the inhuman feel of the game, it is laudable. The graphics and mu??sic are so well executed that I honestly can’t imagine them being improved in any way. While the game itself feels ??so robotic, the aesthetic shows a lot of personality. It's like human flesh over a metal endoskeleton.

What I mean to say is that if an extremely rigid city-builder doesn’t sound like a problem to you, or even if it sounds appealing, then SteamWorld Build is worth trying. I can honestly say that I didn’t hate the time I spent with it, even on the second playthrough. It just feels empty when I think back on it. I don’t think it’s going t??o stick with me. But there are far worse problems for a game to have than being too robotic.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: SteamWorld Build appeared first on Destructoid.

A demo is also out right now

The SteamWorld team is setting its sights on the big city. SteamWorld Build is the newest game set in the SteamWorld setting, arriving in 2023 for PC and consoles.

Announced during today's SteamWorld Telegraph, SteamWorld Build is a? city builder set in the same universe that's tied together all of Thunderful's ste?am-powered games.

The new city builder will see you become the architect of your own mining town, excavating the ground beneath and building a?? town up top. The overall goal is to dig deeper, unearth the goodies, and ultimate?ly escape the planet.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd_ZTJtAW88

It looks similar to games like Dungeon Keeper or Dwarf Fortress, where you're balancing building a world and digging deeper with the impending dangers surrounding you. There are caves to explore, five different SteamWorld-inspired maps with secrets, and it will be controllable with either controller or mo?use?? and keyboard.

If you want to try it out for yourself, you can do so right now too. A demo for SteamWorld Build is live right now as pa?rt of the Steam Base Builder Fest, running Jan?. 23 through Jan. 30, so you can give this game a shot.

The wide, wide world of Steam

Even if city builders aren't your style, there's more SteamWorld games on the way too. While the team wouldn't go into specifics, Thunderful's Brjann Sigurgeirsson confirms there are four SteamWorld games currently in development. The team didn't discuss what those games were, but hey, that's a lot of SteamWorld.

As for SteamWorld Build, no firm date has been set yet but it is planned for both PC and console sometime this year. With a demo already available, I'm personally hoping that's sooner rather than later, as I could go for a good city builder with the wonderful theming that SteamWorld frequently gets right.

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