The Colonists Critic Reviews

To The Colonists’ credit, it does a fairly good job of helping you create your settlements exactly as you want them. It can be a little annoying to place a pathway just so near the end of the fishing pier or the defensive fortifications, but when you take the time to plan things out, it’s still neat to see how it all comes together.

Packed full of charming robots and thoughtful gameplay, The Colonists is a great city builder that controls great on console.

Chill gameplay, plenty of content and a surprisingly deep management system – it’s an impressive package, it’s just a shame the latter isn’t quite as robust as it should be.

The Colonists wasn’t perfect nor was it the most user-friendly, but the city-building objective of the game was met and a thoroughly enjoyable experience was presented to all types of players, making this an easy game to boot up for anyone looking to strategize in an environment that moves at a comfortable pace.

If you’ve access to a PC capable of running it, I’d wholeheartedly recommend that version over any of the console ports, but if you’re looking for a fun little strategy game to take with you on-the-go that’s not overly punishing for every slight mistake you make, The Colonists has you covered.

As much as I loved my first few hours with The Colonists, it did, unfortunately, wear out its welcome after a while. The technology tree, while expansive, is also quite linear – most missions will have players eventually congregating towards the same end game resources. The different maps do provide some strategic depth, but even then the game is low on new ideas by the end of the thirteen missions. While a random-map option would have been nice, I’ve had all the enjoyment I think I’m ever going to get with this game. It’s great while it lasts, but I would have loved for the developers to further explore the idea of complex resource trees in a more open-ended way.

With a rewarding gameplay loop and charming aesthetics, The Colonists is a simulation lover’s dream. There are perhaps too many systems and not enough guidance, but once it clicks you’ll have a blast watching your robot explorers build your own settlements for hours.

The Colonists is a solid game with a less-than-solid feeling port. However, it still is good fun on Switch.

Though the game posits itself as adorable and relaxing, a depressing vision of humanity arises through its narrative (or lack thereof), one in which the aspects of humanity represented are colonisation, environmental destruction, war, and work. The game tells us one thing but shows us another. A story woven into the chapters or levels of the game that develops these ideas might help address this contradiction. Until then, this game is merely a settler simulation with solid mechanics―a well-oiled machine that’s lacking in heart.