The Settlers in the post-apocalypse: Under your leadership, a small group of people create a new world – read our review to find out how well that works out.
The Settlers seems to disappoint strategy fans – so we”ll look around for alternatives! For example, Floodland. In times when most new building games are only available in Early Access, the Frostpunk- and Banished-inspired title by Polish developer studio Vile Monarch appears directly as a finished and complete game on Steam.
Its scenario refreshingly turns the post-apocalypse familiar from Fallout on liks: In the not too distant future, it is not a nuclear war that has devastated the world, but instead the man-made climate catastrophe that suddenly puts the player and his settlers in a tough fight for survival.
The sea level rises and mankind wages wars over resources and land, until finally an event called only “Incident” in the game and not further explained destroys the internet and all other means of communication. After the downfall of the known civilisation, new groups form among the survivors, who write their own rules and try to survive under the most difficult conditions. And we ask ourselves in the test: Is this exciting setting enough to lift Floodland above the competition? Find out in our article!
Table of Contents
Four clans, many views
As the leader of one of these groups, you explore maps surrounded by water, erect tents, houses and production buildings, research new technologies and, of course, are always on the lookout for food and raw materials such as wood or recyclable waste. At first glance, this sounds like standard build-up fare, but Floodland has a few special features in which the past of the creators – they were significantly involved in This War of Mine – shines through positively.
At the beginning of the game you decide on a faction. Each of the four possible starting clans has clear views on how to deal with the knowledge and customs of the lost civilisation and approaches the future differently. This also influences how your followers react to all your decisions. While the “Good Neighbours” focus on democracy and cooperation, the survivors of the Berkut Islands seek their salvation in strict rules and authoritarian command structures. As long as your first settlement consists only of the people of one clan, you can make them happy quite easily: full bellies, enough drinking water, usable accommodation and work for everyone are sufficient at first.
Meanwhile, as you explore the land teeming with ruins and flooded buildings, you”ll keep coming across people. They will either join your clan (and its values) willingly or are already part of an existing community – there are many more groups than the four starting clans!
You decide whether you allow new people with sometimes very extreme views to move into your settlement. However, you must not turn away too many newcomers, as all hands are needed to build up and expand your economy, research and supply. On the other hand, with the increase in population, you also bring a lot of problems into your house apart from different views, after all, everyone wants to be adequately supplied.
Carrot or stick?
Besides the usual building game decisions, it is above all the demands of your “subjects” that keep you on your toes: If some want marriage for all, others prefer to build a pillory for wrongdoers and a third part of your people wants to build chapels, which in turn displeases the first group, things will quickly get really hairy. Then you have to weigh carefully who you are doing a favour to with a new law and who you might alienate: If people are unhappy, crime will quickly escalate and the troublemakers will steal your warehouses. In the end, even a clan can turn its back on you and leave the settlement forever – and that”s bad for productivity and our reputation.
To prevent this from happening, only more laws and the extra buildings they unlock will help. A police station, for example, reduces crime, but is not well received by freedom fans. So why not a campfire where the clan members can relax together – or better yet, a park or even a pub? If two clans simply can”t live together peacefully because of opposing views and are constantly butting heads, the only radical measure that can be taken is to relocate to another island.
From scout camp to settlement
You have to discover new islands first: As soon as you have restored the radio tower that is always present on your starting island, you send out scouts in Floodland to explore the game world, which is initially still covered by fog. From a small camp at the destination, you rummage through ruins in its sphere of influence, discover clues to the reasons for the incident, collect valuable resources or even meet other people. Provided you have done the necessary research, you can expand the camp into a permanent warehouse and claim the surrounding area for yourself to build a settlement.
In ruins you will find useful items as you explore and sometimes discover buildings that you can repair to make shelters or extract resources. Renewable resources such as berries, herbs, wood or rubbish heaps can be cultivated with the corresponding special buildings to make food, medicine, boards and other useful products. However, at the beginning of the game you can only obtain many high-quality items by collecting them, and it is only through diligent research that your settlement becomes almost self-sufficient thanks to advanced production buildings.
The future is in the power plant
When you play the detailed and well-done tutorial, you automatically enter the background story of the game, which slowly but surely leads you to the discovery of a destroyed power plant. The aim of the game is to rebuild this power plant and thus secure the power supply for the entire region in the long term – whether and how intensively you complete the associated tasks is up to you.
However, you cannot avoid this main story entirely if you really want to settle efficiently; Floodland is not a real sandbox with complete freedom of choice. At the moment, only this one basic story is playable. Once you”ve completed it, the only diversion in the daily routine of building and exploring comes from the smaller events that appear again and again during the course of the game.
These events are quite varied, but they seem to repeat themselves a little too often: sometimes the filters of your water distillation plant clog, sometimes monster fish eat up all the shoals of fish off the coast and make it impossible for your fishing post to work. Or you settle clan conflicts and discover the remains of former inhabitants of abandoned ruins.
As a rule, such events lead to explosive decisions, and your people naturally have different opinions on the matter, so that the peace of the settlement can quickly blow up in your face!
Cough drops desperately wanted
Floodland does a lot right with its unusual scenario: research, laws and settlement development are closely intertwined, the four difficulty levels are fairly designed. With the right measures, you can solve almost every crisis without losing settlers and experience an interesting story on the first playthrough.
On the other hand, a few comfort functions for building fans are missing: at the beginning, we can only assign workers new jobs by clicking through the buildings, and a general, convenient overview of job distribution is also missing. With a corresponding district law, this happens automatically, but we still have to keep an eye on the optimal distribution in and after crises, so that the function is less relieving than hoped for.
If you play several islands and thus different districts, the problem determination quickly becomes confusing. However, there is not enough space on the islands for really large and thus unmanageable cities in the Anno style. Moreover, the game world is not completely procedurally regenerated; the game simply arranges the same islands and sights differently each time.
In addition, we had the impression that, despite good accommodation and health care, an epidemic occurs more often than average when our scouts bring home illnesses such as coughs or skin rashes from an expedition. Our test version also crashed several times, understandably when exploring the fourth island. Individually, these ailments can be tolerated and, on top of that, they can be fixed with a patch, but all in all, you will need some patience for Floodland.
Editor”s conclusion
The unusual setting of Floodland had already made me curious at Gamescom, and the demo also played promisingly. However, with a few more hours on the game”s speedometer, my impression is somewhat ambivalent: The world is believable and rich in detail, the construction and exploration are a lot of fun. On the other hand, I simply wish for more freedom; after the second playthrough at the latest, the main story is cold coffee. New scenarios or a real sandbox would be a guarantee for replay, especially since the events repeat themselves at some point.
The basic framework is very solid: the laws and their effects make sense and allow for different social designs, research and exploration function perfectly and allow for slow and steady build-up. Now it just needs more variety as well as a bit more comfort, and Floodland could become an interesting long-running game. However, you can”t expect such nerve-wracking fundamental decisions as in Frostpunk, here Floodland misses some chances. A bit more drama in the otherwise well-written events really couldn”t hurt in new scenarios.
