Banished

 PC
User Score
8.1

Generally favorable reviews- based on 728 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 522 out of 728
  2. Mixed: 162 out of 728
  3. Negative: 44 out of 728

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. Tridus
    Mar 23, 2014
    7
    This is a good game. The simulation part works well, each person has a home and job, and how you design your city matters. You can make mistakes that lead to losses pretty easily. It's good looking, runs well, and is pretty polished. The only lacking thing right now is the lack of things like scenarios. Once you figure things out and get your settlement going well, you kind of have nothingThis is a good game. The simulation part works well, each person has a home and job, and how you design your city matters. You can make mistakes that lead to losses pretty easily. It's good looking, runs well, and is pretty polished. The only lacking thing right now is the lack of things like scenarios. Once you figure things out and get your settlement going well, you kind of have nothing else to do except make it bigger. Hopefully the developer will be able to expand on his success in the future, because the core game is much better than some other recent city builders.… Expand
  2. LD9000
    Apr 20, 2014
    7
    An Ok game, held my interest for a couple days. After you learn how to grow enough food, all you do is expand your settlement. Once in a while, a trader arrives, and once you get your chickens, sheep and cows, there isn't really that much excitement about the trader anymore.

    It does not seem like villagers have any particular skill focus, the same guy can be a woodcutter one day, a    An Ok game, held my interest for a couple days. After you learn how to grow enough food, all you do is expand your settlement. Once in a while, a trader arrives, and once you get your chickens, sheep and cows, there isn't really that much excitement about the trader anymore.

    It does not seem like villagers have any particular skill focus, the same guy can be a woodcutter one day, a farmer another day. This is important because of the route villagers take to their job site from the houses. Unfortunately this also means that if you have a large agricultural population, you have to reshuffle your population every year once the harvest is done. In the course of doing so, it's possible to end up with a population that has to go all the way across the map to their job site. Fixing this gets tedious and kinda boring after a while.

    Overall, an OK city builder, although Tropico 4 is so much better.    … Expand
  3. Beanbag
    Feb 20, 2014
    7
    Banished is a solidly designed indie game, one that will offer hours of fun for those that enjoy city builders. Like most games, it offers nothing truly groundbreaking, but is still a very enjoyable member of it's genre. Unlike most games, it was developed by a team of One. This one-man indie title is similar to larger company titles like Stronghold 3, with the exception that Banished is aBanished is a solidly designed indie game, one that will offer hours of fun for those that enjoy city builders. Like most games, it offers nothing truly groundbreaking, but is still a very enjoyable member of it's genre. Unlike most games, it was developed by a team of One. This one-man indie title is similar to larger company titles like Stronghold 3, with the exception that Banished is a far more polished piece of software (and it actually works the majority of the time!). Banished does seem to currently conflict with F-Secure's "Deepguard" product, part of their Antivirus package. It can be switched off to allow Banished to function perfectly, though this will likely be addressed by a patch sometime after the posting of this review.

    Overall, Banished earns a very solid 7 in my book. Banished is nothing new or exciting, but is an enjoyable re-imagining of a well-loved genre. It performs well and will offer at least a few days of entertainment, and it's relatively low price-point being comparable with a DVD or Blu-Ray makes it easy to suggest that you give it a try.    … Expand
  4. Loler13gr
    Feb 25, 2014
    7
    Although the game is very good with interesting mechanics , nice visuals and many challenges it gets repetitive soon and the lack of a goal does not give you the motive to continue playing...
  5. Solifugae
    Mar 17, 2014
    7
    I do like the game and recommend buying, but it is wonky.

    I am playing right now, and every house I visit has ample food. Fish, potato, Venison, corn, plum, eggs, chickens...each house has over 200 food resources plus firewood, garments etc. I checked every single house, they all have lots of food. But the villagers are dying of starvation. I have lost 13 villagers from starvation    I do like the game and recommend buying, but it is wonky.

    I am playing right now, and every house I visit has ample food. Fish, potato, Venison, corn, plum, eggs, chickens...each house has over 200 food resources plus firewood, garments etc. I checked every single house, they all have lots of food.

    But the villagers are dying of starvation. I have lost 13 villagers from starvation despite each house being full of food. I think it is because it ties starvation to the level of food in the central store rather than the house level.

    Load of potential and fun despite the logic sink-holes.    … Expand
  6. IGNsus
    Mar 25, 2014
    7
    Banished has potential to be a lot better than it currently is.

    This review is not a knock on the game, despite my score. I really think the game is a great achievement, especially if you consider that one man made it. Right now, in its current state, Banished offers a respite from "AAA games cloning syndrome", but not much more than that. Certainly it is charming and entertaining. But    Banished has potential to be a lot better than it currently is.

    This review is not a knock on the game, despite my score. I really think the game is a great achievement, especially if you consider that one man made it. Right now, in its current state, Banished offers a respite from "AAA games cloning syndrome", but not much more than that. Certainly it is charming and entertaining. But the problem is that there's very little to do once your community becomes stable.

    Simply, Banished needs more progression. The end game right now is unrewarding, and players have little incentive (besides their sense of creativity) to expand across the map.

    Hopefully the modding tool can realize the game's enormous potential.    … Expand
  7. suneater
    Feb 16, 2015
    7
    Banished is a fantastically atmospheric, albeit barebones, city builder set in pseudo-colonial times. You start off with a handful of ragged outcasts thrust into the wilderness with a mission of building your own civilization from the landscape. Because of its small scope, Banished is also much more personable than more robust city builders; instead of managing multiple cities or even aBanished is a fantastically atmospheric, albeit barebones, city builder set in pseudo-colonial times. You start off with a handful of ragged outcasts thrust into the wilderness with a mission of building your own civilization from the landscape. Because of its small scope, Banished is also much more personable than more robust city builders; instead of managing multiple cities or even a nation, you start with four to six families and grow to a few hundred people (or more, depending on how long you wish to play a map). This isolation combined with little charming touches, like knowing each citizen's personal info, excellent ambient sound design, and a slower paced game speed, makes Banished the most atmospheric fictional city builder I have played.

    Although there is a rough "progression" to what you can build via resource requirements, any building can be built at any time depending on what your city needs. Real strategy comes in properly timing and planning your construction; While Banished is a pretty laid-back game, a sudden influx of nomads can bring diseases or cause starvation if your city isn't prepared and construction takes significant manpower and cross-profession coordination. This flexibility can be overwhelming for a new player trying to survive their first winter but thankfully Banished's tutorials are well constructed and actually worth playing through even for veterans. Your city's growth (and essentially the game's difficulty) is tied to how much or how little you want to build, leading to a more relaxed game than most city builders.

    Even though I loved most of this game, I spent a lot of time fighting with the villager's AI. While Banished strictly doesn't have win/lose conditions, it is heart-breaking to watch your citizens die from starvation while they are harvesting crops or gathering fish. Other AI issues emerge much earlier in the game, like farmers acting like laborers and not tending their fields during the summer. Laborers also seem to act erratically; when you assign multiple removal tasks, they seem to work in arbitary priority. Constructing multiple buildings is a huge pain with trying to coordinate the laborers with the builders; I eventually resorted to laying down a "building plan" and mass-pausing construction, unpausing one building at a time to be built. Maybe I don't understand all the intracies of the AI but 50 hours in and I'm still frustrated and often resorting to using the "Increase Priority" tool.

    Banished is also missing many things that add challenge and depth to other city builders. This is essentially the "kiddie pool" of city builders with no crime, polution, budget balancing/taxation, or non-essential buildings. With 31 construction options, everything you build is for managing food, housing or supplying citizens, or transportation needs. There are some minor trading elements but its mostly there to keep your city growing once you run out of certain resources. Once you have a stable city running all there is to do is make it bigger while avoiding starvation or disasters. The same could be said of many games but I always look forward to building a sports stadium in SimCity... here it feels like it's just food, food, and more food.

    If you haven't played a city builder before, Banished is a great place to start. Veterans looking for a more laid-back experience will get a few dozen hours out of this while alt+tabbed with something else. Nothing here is groundbreaking but what there is is a great change of pace from playing certain other sims at Cheetah speed.    … Expand
  8. iseeall
    Dec 8, 2015
    7
    It's a city/village building game somewhat close to Sim Sity, Black & White or Settlers. The start is pretty hard - you will have to try a few times until you "get it". Then it gets pretty easy as you expand. However, in the end the game starts throwing random negative events like fires and diseases, destroying the awesomeness you've built.

    The good: - pretty difficult - many    It's a city/village building game somewhat close to Sim Sity, Black & White or Settlers. The start is pretty hard - you will have to try a few times until you "get it". Then it gets pretty easy as you expand. However, in the end the game starts throwing random negative events like fires and diseases, destroying the awesomeness you've built.

    The good:
    - pretty difficult
    - many interesting mechanics which all depend on each other and work pretty well together

    The so-so:
    - graphics are 3D and look ok, but most buildings have very similar roofs which makes it a bit hard to distinguish them from each other
    - the game is all about hardship and endurance, but such things aren't fun in real life, so in the game they bore you after a while. The game would definitely benefit if there was at least some humor, or maybe an advisor/companion. Some human touch. Or maybe a little story, or the main character who led this banished group. As it is, it feels somewhat anonymous and mechanical.

    The bad:
    - if you make a mistake or some random crap happens, or you didn't know some rule - you are screwed. It will take 10 or more in-game years until you recover. In my case the only "educated teacher" died from old age, there was no laborer available to take his place, and all students stopped their training. And after that the game would randomly re-sort villagers, covertly appointing a non-educated one on important roles like blacksmith or teacher although I made sure an educated one was on that role! The non-educated blacksmith couldn't renew the tools for everyone fast enough, and uneducated farmers without tools couldn't produce wheat etc etc. By the time I finally sorted that out I didn't care anymore for the villagers dying and just kept speeding up the game as the whole system slowly corrected itself across years.
    - as the village grows, the slow movement speed of the villagers becomes the main factor which hinders further development. A villager can spend 3 in-game months or even more on just running from one side of the map to the other, and by that time his task may become obsolete. An action like chopping a tree takes a second, but the villager will spend a minute running to that tree, and then another minute running back.
    - pathfinding seems to ignore roads. The villagers run in diagonal paths, ignoring roads - so why even build roads?
    - the music gets very repetitive, need more tracks
    - there is no goal (maybe just achievements), so after playing for a while you will just turn the game off because you will get fed up. You will fill the whole map with buildings and there will be nothing left to do, and there won't be any sense of accomplishment because the game is still running, and still tortures you with random destruction.
    - there is no way you can send a specific villager to a specific task. There is a clumsy "increase priority" dragbox which works in an arcane manner and never tells you which villagers will now go do this, if at all. Prioritizing commands doesn't work well which leaves you feeling powerless in front of a gigantic simulation which mostly runs by itself.    … Expand
  9. BastardySkull
    Feb 20, 2014
    7
    Very zen game, could have more depth later in game and some wonders/larger construction tasks or build trees. Challenge modes would have been good as well. Good potential for modding.
  10. Ninjapixel
    Mar 12, 2014
    7
    Banished is the type of game that makes you lose sense of time.

    Strategic sandbox titles often fail when it comes to balancing the in-game stats. However, Banished doesn't fail. As a matter of fact it seems to work pretty well. Sure there could be a few more features and sure it is not the best looking game out there. But the music, the feeling and the fun this game brings makes it    Banished is the type of game that makes you lose sense of time.

    Strategic sandbox titles often fail when it comes to balancing the in-game stats. However, Banished doesn't fail. As a matter of fact it seems to work pretty well.

    Sure there could be a few more features and sure it is not the best looking game out there. But the music, the feeling and the fun this game brings makes it worthwhile. I like it!    … Expand
  11. Tibster
    Apr 18, 2014
    7
    Been following the game since early development and had high hopes. Love "city building" games and hoped this was the one ive been waiting for. didnt take me to long to understand it, and the game therefor fast became easy and unchallenging. Wish the game had some ingame missions or goals, so you have to focus more and be more involved. Cudos to the solo dev, the graphics looks good andBeen following the game since early development and had high hopes. Love "city building" games and hoped this was the one ive been waiting for. didnt take me to long to understand it, and the game therefor fast became easy and unchallenging. Wish the game had some ingame missions or goals, so you have to focus more and be more involved. Cudos to the solo dev, the graphics looks good and the general style is nice. Didnt like the gui to much, but thats personal preferences. In general, im a little disapointet, but happy to support a developer who does things on its own.… Expand
  12. Kingbingo
    Feb 26, 2014
    7
    The game has an inverse difficulty curve in that making it through your first few winters is probably the games greatest challenge. Get beyond the need for simple food and shelter and your settlement can start to grow and you find yourself in a relaxing well-made village builder. Once you start playing it has that, just one more year, quality that keeps you sat at the PC engrossed as theThe game has an inverse difficulty curve in that making it through your first few winters is probably the games greatest challenge. Get beyond the need for simple food and shelter and your settlement can start to grow and you find yourself in a relaxing well-made village builder. Once you start playing it has that, just one more year, quality that keeps you sat at the PC engrossed as the hours fly by.

    However, a week on I find myself with little incentive to replay. As the game currently lacks any higher goals or real sense of progression once you have a viable settlement.

    While I’m hugely impressed this all came from one person I feel the game needs more depth. In its current form it has too little replayablity. As a foundation to add greater depth you could not ask for better than this, and I hope in time the dev and modders flesh out the game. I am glad I purchased, but I will now be taking a long pause until the game gets built upon.    … Expand
  13. TenchuuKhan
    Mar 2, 2014
    7
    Here's what the game is all about:
    Get your peasants to survive the first winter by providing the most basic resources they need such as: food, shelter, fire wood
    Move on to acquiring iron and letter so you can produce tools and clothes for your peasants. Get more food, build more houses. Build mines, a quarry, a forestry guy so you have a steady income of the most basic resources    Here's what the game is all about:
    Get your peasants to survive the first winter by providing the most basic resources they need such as: food, shelter, fire wood
    Move on to acquiring iron and letter so you can produce tools and clothes for your peasants.
    Get more food, build more houses.
    Build mines, a quarry, a forestry guy so you have a steady income of the most basic resources
    Build more food, build more houses.
    Get medicine, build a hospital, a church, etc. so your peasants are happy. Try to get all available resource types for the hell of it.

    And that's about it.

    Where's the fun in that?
    It's very challenging at the beginning and that's what makes this game so much fun. But once you got your head around it it gets really, really boring.
    For a building game it only gave me around 15 hours of entertainment - which just isn't good enough. And there's no actual goal once you got everything working besides having more citizens which again, has no payoff whatsoever.

    All in all, it's fun, but the price tag just isn't fair. It defends itself as being a "one guy dev" game but it charges you like there was a whole indy team behind it.
    Currently it goes for 19 bucks on Steam - a proper pricing would be 5.    … Expand
  14. Helmenkalastaja
    May 5, 2014
    7
    Another city build game with some new perspectives. I did get bored pretty quickly, as there is lot of just waiting for resources to be gathered still i play this game occasionally. Fun game still and worth to buy. Also i wanted to support one-man project.
  15. Elissonx
    Feb 25, 2014
    7
    The best review is from PC Gamer (Feb 21, 2014)
    70/100: "A nice change of pace for city-builders, but it loses momentum once the immediate urgency of survival goes away."

    I agree in everything.
  16. ww99w
    Feb 25, 2014
    7
    Banished is a very interesting city building game. You have to manage an efficient supply chain to survive the unforgiving world. It is very good for the first dozen or so hours, however the game needs to expand to keep interest. The AI is pretty good, however you will sometimes see some less then average behaviors such as some workers doing random chores instead of their work
  17. fakundott
    Apr 30, 2014
    7
    As a sandbox game, this game is really fun! City building and managing are made quite realistic. We should hope for new games that take an example of this one... Only lacks a campaign mode.
  18. fleischer
    Aug 12, 2014
    7
    A very solid game from a one-man developer. Graphics are impressive for an indie game, and the simulation even more so. This game has a kind of direct and detailed simulation you won't find (executed successfully) in the bigger titles (the latest Simcity comes to mind).

    On the downside it kind of has only one recipe for success (a particular way and order in which the buildings should    A very solid game from a one-man developer. Graphics are impressive for an indie game, and the simulation even more so. This game has a kind of direct and detailed simulation you won't find (executed successfully) in the bigger titles (the latest Simcity comes to mind).

    On the downside it kind of has only one recipe for success (a particular way and order in which the buildings should be built). And it doesn't take you much time to discover this particular recipe, and once you have, there isn't much more enjoyment to be had with 'Banished', unfortunately. The developer has been ambiguous when answering whether or not he will be adding to the game. I really hope he does, because it could really use some meat around its bones and some more complexity to the simulation, because right now it is very easy to "see through".    … Expand
  19. carolean7
    Sep 29, 2014
    7
    An inventive and fun game. For its price has lots of replay value. It does suffer from being tedious towards the end-game, but the challenge of getting there is where most of the fun is.
  20. FlaviusAetius
    Nov 22, 2017
    7
    A fun game that, for a few hours, can satiate any fan of the building sim genre but loses its appeal soon thereafter. The act of building up a town to allow them to survive is exciting but once your town becomes self-sufficient there's not much to do but wait every ten minutes for another trader to arrive.
  21. ireviewbadgames
    Aug 15, 2018
    7
    Banished is a relatively well-made game, polished enough for release, but a bit limited when it comes to content. There are no real goals or milestones in the base game, so some players may get bored easily.. The modding community manages to prop it up a bit, but there's only so much they can do.

    I would say it's price tag is accurate and when on sale, even better.
  22. Blackdragonbird
    Feb 24, 2014
    6
    Game has great potential, but is still full of flaws and some strange bugs. The AI needs serious work yet and the 90° totally square construction layout is a little annoying. The major flaw for me yet is what I call "Tool Outbreak of Doom", basically, when you have more than 100 citizens and don't maintain the eyes in your iron and/or log stocks and your blacksmith stop making tools, theGame has great potential, but is still full of flaws and some strange bugs. The AI needs serious work yet and the 90° totally square construction layout is a little annoying. The major flaw for me yet is what I call "Tool Outbreak of Doom", basically, when you have more than 100 citizens and don't maintain the eyes in your iron and/or log stocks and your blacksmith stop making tools, the stock vanish and your blacksmith needs to work with a broken tool too, it makes he produces tools at a very low speed and can't keep up to the tool consumption, it causes a chain reaction lowering all your city production, food and fuel get consumed faster than can be produced and your town break. The annoying thing is, the stupid blacksmith keeps making tools but cant grab one for himself, It's serious.

    Otherwise the game is fun and addictive, but is not worth his value in this state yet.    … Expand
  23. diehard-gamer
    Aug 22, 2015
    6
    Should be a good little game.

    Reasonably priced (if you get it on sale for £5 or so). Graphics are functional, bordering on attractive. Weather effects and terrain features like trees can make it difficult to see whats happening, but weather graphics can be turned off. Interface is pretty standard for these types of games. BUT it some really bizarre things happen ingame for no    Should be a good little game.

    Reasonably priced (if you get it on sale for £5 or so). Graphics are functional, bordering on attractive. Weather effects and terrain features like trees can make it difficult to see whats happening, but weather graphics can be turned off. Interface is pretty standard for these types of games.

    BUT it some really bizarre things happen ingame for no obvious reason. Last game I played I had fields full of crops, paddocks full of animals, more hunters, fishermen and gatherers than you could shake a stick at - and all my population starved to death ............?    … Expand
  24. Buhehe
    Feb 25, 2014
    6
    It' a fairly okay game.... I admit I'm not a hardcore city building games fan, but I was attracted by the positive reviews this game had, and the fact that only 1 guy built it on its own, I like supporting indie devs.

    While the game itself is interesting and somewhat different from what I've seen before, the game lacks depth and content. There's no campaign, a very limited set of    It' a fairly okay game.... I admit I'm not a hardcore city building games fan, but I was attracted by the positive reviews this game had, and the fact that only 1 guy built it on its own, I like supporting indie devs.

    While the game itself is interesting and somewhat different from what I've seen before, the game lacks depth and content.

    There's no campaign, a very limited set of buildings... you'll be doing the same stuff over and over, I feel like I have nothing to look forward to... the only hard thing to get is some special items from merchants, like seeds and animals, but that's it.

    Infact, my desire of playing this game decreased rapidly in just a few days, now I barely touch it anymore, and kinda regret spending 19€ for it. If I could have gone back in time, I would have waited for a 5€ sale.    … Expand
  25. gabriot
    May 2, 2014
    6
    Honestly it doesn't nothing that Dwarf Fortress (a completely free game) doesn't already do, in fact it does about 10% that game does. All it is, is a hyped up rip-off of dwarf fortress with clean graphics and simple game play.

    The game isn't awful, but it's painfully mediocre. There are lots of bad mechanics, such as having houses starve or freeze to death because one other house is    Honestly it doesn't nothing that Dwarf Fortress (a completely free game) doesn't already do, in fact it does about 10% that game does. All it is, is a hyped up rip-off of dwarf fortress with clean graphics and simple game play.

    The game isn't awful, but it's painfully mediocre. There are lots of bad mechanics, such as having houses starve or freeze to death because one other house is randomly hoarding all the food/clothing. And there's no way you can directly fix that situation, basically you are stuck with hoping everything works out fine at the market place.

    On top of that, there just really isn't much to do or see in the game. There aren't a whole lot of structures you can build, and after about 4 hours of playing the game you've honestly seen all there is to see, at that point it's just expanding outward using the same structures you already have, just building more of them.

    Overall, a pretty hyped up game for such a mediocre bland experience. I'd say save your money and just play dwarf fortress or even prison architect - both are vastly superior games.    … Expand
  26. ultravincent
    Jan 20, 2020
    6
    Not sure how this one got so many raging reviews.
    The dynamics are interesting, but the variety of jobs and materials is very limited. It gets old very quickly, lasted me about 5 hrs.
  27. demondred79
    Jul 21, 2014
    6
    After 10 hours you'll be all done with this simulator. All the buildings you can make will be built....all the challenges you can face will be faced. Quickly you'll punch up the speed to x10 and it just becomes a trivial rinse/repeat "groundhog day" adventure.

    I ruined my first town trying to figure out how the game behaves (despite going thru full tutorial), which was to be expected.    After 10 hours you'll be all done with this simulator. All the buildings you can make will be built....all the challenges you can face will be faced. Quickly you'll punch up the speed to x10 and it just becomes a trivial rinse/repeat "groundhog day" adventure.

    I ruined my first town trying to figure out how the game behaves (despite going thru full tutorial), which was to be expected. The second town I built very carefully, and apparently I more or less mastered the game because all it devolved into was a series of moving numbers up and down on tiny GUI buttons. Assign peasants to tasks, unassign them......raise building quotas....lower them. There's no end to this game that I am aware of. No upgrading of buildings. No new "era" to be born into. The game is all about creating an equilibrium and trying to maintain it while people either die of old age or from (more often than not) dying in a quarry or mine.

    That's it. That's the game.....

    It had addictive qualities but ultimately it's a time waster of a game. Do NOT buy this for full price ($20) wait for it to go for $5 and then it's a fair purchase.    … Expand
  28. gromenawer
    Feb 19, 2014
    6
    Game mechanics are great but the game it self is quite easy to master. After a few hours of learning the rules and provided that you know just a little of mathematics you can find the optimal equilibrium in the game. It has some variance in the type of plants you grow and animals you tender but ultimately you can explore the whole game very quickly in any difficulty. Its feels more like anGame mechanics are great but the game it self is quite easy to master. After a few hours of learning the rules and provided that you know just a little of mathematics you can find the optimal equilibrium in the game. It has some variance in the type of plants you grow and animals you tender but ultimately you can explore the whole game very quickly in any difficulty. Its feels more like an early release for the given price.

    Worth say that this game will be great once the modding community get their hands on it and develop new content and new structures. I'm glad to see that the community is avid of city building games; after the Sim City 5 fiasco was clear that there is desire and market for them.

    There are some minor bad choices on how the UI works but you can pretend they are not there. Technically the game has a great performance.    … Expand
  29. Jancelot
    Feb 19, 2014
    6
    Nice game, its been a long time there has been a game like this. Its a bit to easy though, once you got a basic town set up there's not much that can happen. I had build every kind of building after 2 hours of playing and i wasnt even rushing it (i'm playing on the hardest difficulty in harsh conditions). After a while you just waiting till a trader with a new kind op crop comes by orNice game, its been a long time there has been a game like this. Its a bit to easy though, once you got a basic town set up there's not much that can happen. I had build every kind of building after 2 hours of playing and i wasnt even rushing it (i'm playing on the hardest difficulty in harsh conditions). After a while you just waiting till a trader with a new kind op crop comes by or till some immigrants want to join your settlement. Still a game worth buying though, I just really hope they will add some more content and some more difficulty to the game. It feels a bit like a beta, it has al the basics but no in depth gameplay.… Expand
  30. leaveit
    Sep 22, 2014
    6
    While this is an impressive achievement for one person to have accomplished all by themselves, the game is severely lacking in content. The simulation seems fairly reasonable except for a few dumb pathing problems and oversimplifications with regards to time. The music is appropriate and even sometimes catchy. The game ran without a hitch (i.e. no errors) for many hours on my PC. However,While this is an impressive achievement for one person to have accomplished all by themselves, the game is severely lacking in content. The simulation seems fairly reasonable except for a few dumb pathing problems and oversimplifications with regards to time. The music is appropriate and even sometimes catchy. The game ran without a hitch (i.e. no errors) for many hours on my PC. However, pretty much everything there is to see can be seen after about 4 or 5 hours. At this point I found myself asking why I was continuing on. There is a marked lack of progression, normally seen in city building games like the Sim City series. You will find that every building type has been built in multiples, every tool and clothing upgrade has been explored, and most crops have been planted within 10 hours of the game, after which the entire thing just becomes mild micromanagement and spreadsheets. It's an interesting concept as far as city simulators go, but it needs to be fleshed out more.… Expand
prev
Page:

Awards & Rankings

34
#34 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
58
#58 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
73

Mixed or average reviews - based on 32 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 32
  3. Negative: 1 out of 32
  1. SpazioGames
    Jun 8, 2015
    75
    A city builder with small maps and a limited number of buildings that manages to be a great game thanks to the extraordinary balance of all its elements required to make big settlements: basically has everything a game of this kind must have, and also something more.
    Read full review
  2. Pelit (Finland)
    May 11, 2014
    80
    A classical city-building game where you help a group of settlers to build a new home for themselves. That's Banished in a nutshell. In a surprising twist, the game doesn't feature any combat at all, but I personally didn't even miss it because after all it's a peaceful game where the main focus is planning your town's future and not fighting against evil aliens. Even though Banished was made by just one man, it feels really polished. In particular, the interface is really well done. Of course, no game is perfect and Banished has some issues. The biggest of them all is that there are no objectives or end goals so you can never really win or lose. [March 2014]
  3. Riot Pixels
    May 7, 2014
    60
    Banished, as it stands now, looks like a game from Steam Early Access rather than a finished product.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »