It’s understandable that Stranded: Alien Dawn has been compared to Rimworld. Most colony simulators, in one way or another, are compared to Rimworld. You crash-land on an alien planet with nothing but your wrecked ship and a few measly supplies - rations, medicine, maybe a weapon or two, and then you need to lead your small group of survivors to self-sustainability and survival.

While Stranded: Alien Dawn comes out swinging with its impressive 3D graphics and characters with actual legs, the game still needs more time to reach the lofty heights of Rimworld. More time from the devs, and more time, more importantly, from a dedicated modding community.

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There is a lot to like in Stranded: Alien Dawn. I had a blast with a very hard run, taking Yokko and Ken (a grandmother and grandson who actually hated each other) from a scrap metal hovel to a fully operational fortress with automatic turrets and flamethrowers. I love the hot air balloon mechanic that allows you to send your colonists off on expeditions across the planet’s surface. I felt a deep connection with them both when they enjoyed music nights, one slapping on a handpan and the other huffing into a didgeridoo. It’s all held together by the visuals - by the enormous moon rising over the horizon, the soft sun in the trees, and the vultures that swoop down to eat the dead bugs in your traps. There is room here for the sort of organic storytelling that has turned Rimworld into a genre-defining classic - we just need more of it.

I kept waiting for something more spectacular to happen. The colony experienced a meteor shower, some more crashed spaceships, a group of marauding bloodthirsty alien mantis creatures, plenty of thunderstorms, and a couple of heatwaves. But where are my hordes of rampaging squirrels? Or raiders with clubs and a hunger for human flesh? When my character had a mental breakdown, Yokko just went for a walk in the woods. Once I was set up with my defenses and had enough food to last several lifetimes, the game transformed from a colony surviving hardships to a tower defense game. I didn’t feel the fear that I do in Rimworld - that at any moment, Randy Random is going to destroy everything I’ve built by throwing absolutely everything at me over the course of five brutal in-game days. Plagues, robots, a rampaging alien unicorn that one-shots my colonists. Stranded: Alien Dawn just doesn’t hit the same.

As it stands, without extra scenarios (although I did get to play the military expedition scenario added on release day), the game also lacks a lot of the customization you’d expect. Each colonist, although rendered nicely with matching high-quality portraits, has set traits, skills, and storylines. This isn’t inherently a bad thing - in fact, it’s pretty fun trying to optimize your runs with the perfect selection of colonists, but it does mean that it’s harder to create your own custom scenarios. I want my colonists to feel like my own creation, however maniacal that sounds.

This raises an interesting question about colony simulators in general, and games as a whole. It takes a lot to make the leap from a 100-hour game to a 1,000-hour game. Rimworld is a 1,000-hour game, but then it’s also been updated and modded for a decade now. Development support during Stranded: Alien Dawn’s early access period has been stellar, and that should always be commended because it’s not always the case. I’ve got a lot of faith that this will likely become one of my favourite colony simulators given a few more months of updates and mods.

I have no doubts that the Steam Workshop will do wonders with this game. If modding is supported properly by the developers, which it appears will be the case, we could have some seriously impressive mods down the line. I’ve already played around with the Beyond Stranded mod that adds a bunch of new traits, survivors, and expeditions - it’s a clear indicator of what is possible given enough time and effort. As it stands, though, Stranded: Alien Dawn is already a good game, but with more customization, narrative elements, scenarios, and general expansion on some solid foundations, it can become a great game.

A PC Steam code was provided for this review.

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