RimWorld

Lore & Background

The game is set in the distant future, where humans are spread across the universe but cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Planets and star systems develop in isolation from each other, and while some societies advance technologically, others regress due to war or disease. As a result, there is a massive range of technological levels among societies, from Neolithic tribes to reality-transcending machine gods. The player oversees colonists stranded on a procedurally generated planet located in the frontiers of known space, and must form a functioning colony with the survivors, contending with both the environment and hostile inhabitants to survive and eventually escape.

In-game events are procedurally generated by a 'storyteller' algorithm that analyzes the player's current situation and chooses events based on what it assesses will make the most interesting narrative. The game has three pre-configured storytellers: 'Cassandra Classic', who follows traditional storytelling techniques of rising and falling tension; 'Phoebe Chillax', who allows for additional downtime between events; and 'Randy Random', who forsakes a narrative altogether in favor of randomness and excitement. Events can range from simple occurrences such as a caravan of traders passing by, to catastrophic long-lasting events like cold snaps or volcanic winters.

Each pawn has a randomly generated background, set of traits and skills, and relations with other pawns, which affect how they can contribute to or endanger the colony. Colonists are not directly controlled by the player themselves, but instead given tasks and orders to be completed with a priority system. If needs are left unmet, pawns may have 'mental breaks' such as going into a daze, setting fires, or attacking other pawns. The game has two save-modes: Commitment mode acts as permadeath mode, disabling manual saving, while the 'reload anytime' mode allows the player to save and load freely.

Reader's Guide

RimWorld was inspired by Dwarf Fortress and Firefly, and its art style by Prison Architect. Tynan Sylvester, the lead developer, had his first experience with game design by creating custom levels for Unreal Tournament as a middle schooler. After working at Irrational Games on BioShock Infinite for four years, he left in February 2012 to become an independent game developer. He settled on the RimWorld concept after a game test with friends one evening, during which two of them became so absorbed that they couldn't bring themselves to leave until 2 AM. The game was publicly revealed on September 15, 2013, and a Kickstarter campaign launched on October 2, 2013, earning CA$268,132 in 30 days. From 2013 to 2018, the development team hovered between two and three developers. After release, the team scaled up to seven developers, allowing for the development of multiple projects in parallel. The game has an active modding community, with modifications distributed via the Steam Workshop, the game's official forums, or other mod websites, ranging from simple quality of life upgrades to complete gameplay overhauls. The console version was developed and published by Double Eleven.

Did You Know?

• RimWorld was originally called Eclipse Colony.
• The game was inspired by Dwarf Fortress and Firefly, with art style inspired by Prison Architect.
• The game has three pre-configured storytellers: Cassandra Classic, Phoebe Chillax, and Randy Random.