One of the most interesting, in-depth city builders this decade.
A little over five years after it launched into Early Access, city builder Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic has released its completed 1.0 version. Standing out from other city builders by its emphasis on industry, transportation, and the use of material goods in manufacture, Workers & Resources has a reputation as a hardcore simulation that’s quite good at its chosen areas of focus. If you’ve ever disliked how buildings in other city games just pop up without the requisite amount of steel, wood, concrete, and bricks produced and delivered beforehand—well, this one’s probably for you.
Workers & Resources has come a long way since launch, but maintains its focus on the mining of resources, manufacturing of goods, and construction of buildings. That, of course, also means keeping your workers happy, healthy, fed, and loyal to the state—otherwise they’ll abscond with themselves over the border for a life in the affluen capitalist West. It’s a challenging game on its highest difficulties and realism modes, but an enjoyable industrial city-designing sandbox on its infinite money modes.
If you’re the kind of city building enthusiast who obsesses over industrial layout in factory games, logistics in transport games, or just loves the kind of hyper-detailed materials gameplay you get in Dwarf Fortress, I really can’t recommend Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic enough.
The game launch also came alongside the release of a new DLC, Biomes. That adds three new maps to build in: an arid desert, snowy tundra, and monsoon-stricken tropics. I’ve played around with them a bit, and while the map variety is low the gameplay tweaks are fun if you’ve been playing a lot of this game over the past five years.
Besides the tweaks, fixes, and stability boosts you’d expect from the release version, the 1.0 patch has also added some new stuff to build. There’re new cultural buildings like an amphiteater and larger stadium, as well as playgrounds too keep young kids healthier. There are also a few new Western vehicles to import.
“This project has taken 7 years of my life, and it has changed my life,” said developer 3Division lead Peter in a release post. “Thank you to all the team members: Martin, Michal, Vlado, Karel, Robs, Krzysztof, and many others who dedicated their souls to this project and helped me finish this monster.”
He was clear that the 1.0 release was not the end of development: “While you play the game, we will continue updating it and even adding new features,” he said.
You can find Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic on Steam for $40, or at launch sale price of 35% off until June 27.
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