RimWorld

The game is meant to be a "story generator". Events are picked by an AI storyteller, which chooses whatever it reckons will make the most interesting story. The storytellers differ: one builds and releases tension, another leaves more breathing room, and a third throws events at you at random.

The game spent almost five years in early access, until October 2018, made by two or three people. In 2022 Australia's classification board refused a console version over its depictions of drug use, and Steam pulled the game for Australians. In April it got an R18+ rating after all, partly because the game punishes regular drug use with overdose, addiction and withdrawal.

One reviewer disliked the early game but found the middle and late stretches entertaining. Players leave 97% positive out of 211,271 reviews, critics give it 87 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #385 of 4,736 games.

Liked it? Try Dwarf Fortress, the dwarf colony sim that inspired RimWorld, and Oxygen Not Included, where three colonists start out inside an asteroid with scattered pockets of air.