The first reviews are coming out for SteamWorld Build!

The next game in the SteamWorld family, this title takes city building and dungeon diving to a new marriage of the concepts. It's looking really nice!

Nintendo Life and Pocket Tactics are the first two who reviewed and rated the Nintendo Switch edition. Both gave it an 8/10. That's about where I expected this to be. PC has it lower at say, 73, but perhaps there's just a lot more experience on that end of this kind of game style. I don't play a lot of these games and it sounds like there's a lot for someone like me to enjoy.

Nintendo Life said:

"the whole game feels like it’s riding a line between management sim and RTS at times"

It's 10% off right now until release on 12/1, and I'm tempted to tackle that despite being busy with both recent Mario games. I'm not yet sure what I'll do but I definitely want to play this game soon!

Anyone else interested in it?

The SteamWorld games I've played have been solid, and I do love me a good management sim, so I'll definitely be checking this out. If it gets a physical release.

Never even heard of this!

Will go look into it, thanks.

I’ve been excited for this, and I see it’s on GamePass, which is awesome for me currently.

I’m an outlier I think, because I actually thought Heist was my favorite Steamworld game. I really liked the Dig games, don’t get me wrong, but it had just been a while since I had played any kind of 2D strategy game that was executed that well.

@PogueSquadron
I think I agree with you, actually. I'm also one of the seemingly few that prefer the original SteamWorld Dig over the sequel, despite being a big fan of Metroidvanias.

@r_hjort

It is my fear that when I start Dig 2 (I have it ready to go, just didn't schedule the time yet) I will also find it lacking compared to Dig 1. Dig 1 was just SO GOOD. It was like perfectly balanced or something. Everything was exactly right. Adding or subtracting would so easily break what they crafted. I'm hopeful, but if Dig 2 turns out lesser as a result of breaking the perfect balance, I won't be super surprised.

Still, going to try to just enjoy the experience!

@J.K. Riki
Agreed, Dig 1 was perfectly balanced. At least from what I remember. It really nailed that one-more-run kind of addictiveness. For better and for worse, Dig 2 doesn't even try to accomplish the same thing. The procedural stuff is gone and the more traditional Metroidvania stuff with hand crafted environments is taking its place. Dig 2 is a great game, and I'm not surprised that people like it so much. You're definitely going to enjoy it.

EDIT: Also, El Huervo's lo-fi chops are on full display in El Machino.

I just didn’t *get* the Dig games like some people did. I found them addicting in that you’d want to go for one more run in the mines over and over, but I didn’t find its progression as satisfying as a more finely designed Metroidvania style game.

Now, Heist was kind of a by the numbers strategy game IML, but it was done really well. I liked the variety in the enemies and everything felt very nicely curated. And it just had a good vibe. All these games do, really. Build seems to hopefully bring their knowledge of making accessible games and combining it with a genre that is normally pretty inaccessible.