
I’m warning you now, controlling your population by drastic means doesn’t feel too great. I did feel rather guilty about starving my population till it became manageable again… It’s not the most uplifting of games! The destruction caused by fires and tornadoes is a pain, but I just had to laugh when I saw a tornado appear and wipe out half the village I’d just repaired! Don’t worry, natural disasters can be disabled before creating a save so don’t let this put you off. The achievement targets are challenging enough however, and I’m still yet to unlock them all. This makes for a gameplay experience that oddly manages to be. Banished looks phenomenal, and it ran without a hitch at maximum settings on my two year-old PC, even in the late game when my town of nearly 200 began to sprawl across several screens. While there are 36 achievements that offer objectives, unfortunately when they’re completed there is nothing left to aim for as the game doesn’t have an ending. The difficulty (which can be tweaked, either through settings or mods) makes the game much more intriguing as a light strategy game. Banished is quite simply a sandbox city builder: there’s no fluff, no massive tech trees, and not even a huge amount of progression. While the genre can be difficult to get into due to clunky interfaces, obtuse or cryptic instructions, and infuriating citizen behaviors, Banished offers a fairly intuitive take on things and it’s also easy on the eyes.

You may find the winning formula in your first attempt – you’d have to be extremely fortunate! – but there is continuous amount of adapting required if you wish to maintain your village.Īs with most games, the beginning was the most enjoyable for me.

The experiences I had at struggling made the succeeding much more sweeter.
