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

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  1. twisterforever
    Sep 1, 2023
    10
    One of the most wonderful city builder out there :-D
    I love it from the beginning!!
  2. LT_Gruber
    Dec 13, 2022
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Beautiful, relaxing game that failed miserably.

    Banished has a really good concept but is poorly executed. In the core, it is just a town building simulator where you start a nice quiet village where everyone lives in harmony, or at least, so I thought. The game goes on forever, until you quit, or everyone starved to death, and in a moment, you will read that the last option is the way to go.

    The graphics in Banished are not that special in terms of realism, but they are made in a way that the game feels very calming and charming. It is hard to explain. This, added with the calm forest music playing in the background and I was all set. Ready for my digital vacation.

    I love the build system, the resource collection, and the overall atmosphere of the game. It is all very good, and I finally thought that I had found my new relaxation game in which I can empty my mind and watch my humble citizens build a nice place for themselves and each other. But then, anarchy, or better said, bad game design, kicked in..

    It all comes down to one simple problem that ruined the whole game. The balancing of the collected resources. Every home in your cute little village needs food, wood and other basic needs to survive and keep them fed and warm. All collected resources are placed on the general stockpile that you build first and citizens go to this stockpile to collect the resources for their homes. The big problem is this:

    Your citizen noticed that it is out of wood. It walks to the stockpile, grabs ten logs and walks back to his nice and comfortable dwelling. But ten logs are not enough, it comes back to the stockpile and takes another ten logs, rapidly decreasing the supply. When the humble villager collected more than forty logs, his freezing neighbour walks to the stockpile, only to find that there is nothing left in store. Shivering with cold and misery, he waits for the woodcutters to bring more logs. It is his lucky day; the woodcutters return with five fresh logs and place them on the stockpile. The neighbour walks towards the stockpile, only to find out that his greedy neighbour, who lives closer to the stockpile snitches the last five logs from the pile. After taking the logs, he spits into the freezing neighbours face and walks back to his home to add his five logs to his collection of forty that he already has. The poor man cries in defeat and dies of frostbite.

    I can make another story, but it is clear. The game has no balancer, no options to say to the greedy son of a b** that he has enough wood and need to leave some resources for the rest of the town. Whole neighbourhoods die of starvation and cold, the big piles of resources in the home of the greedy sh!ts gets larger by the minute and their hunger is never satisfied. And there is nothing you can do about it. The game runs slow as a snail too, so you can see your citizens die in slow-motion because the last apple has just been collected by another villager, who’s house almost explodes from the number of resources stuffed in it. It is just unbelievable that this issue exists in this kind of game.

    Sadly, this is the boner killer for me, and it ruined my whole experience. And it is such a shame, the game could have been so perfect for me with all the positive aspects that I mentioned at the beginning.

    So in short, if you want to watch a slow, digital version of The Purge: Anarchy and watch your villagers do whatever the hell they want and not giving a damn about each other, than this is the game for you.    … Expand
  3. Empidonax
    Apr 2, 2022
    8
    Very well-done medieval village building simulator, good soundtrack. The game on its own is very good, but there are mods to make it more complex which add more replayability.
  4. gentlebenno
    Jan 27, 2022
    8
    A game of it's time, it's still a lot of fun. Some good replay value. But I'm always hoping for a bit more. I still keep coming back every now and again though. Worth the price you pay nowadays for sure. Lots of medieval colony sims out there and none have yet done as well as this one though.
  5. Esperantisto
    May 14, 2021
    6
    This is like Simcity , but at a much lower detail. You have to specifically build houses, roads, and so on.

    I've played this game about 100 hours, so obviously it isn't all bad. However, once you learn a few details about the simulation -- which are not at all obvious and which you probably won't find from playing the game, but only from reading guides -- the game becomes much easier    This is like Simcity , but at a much lower detail. You have to specifically build houses, roads, and so on.

    I've played this game about 100 hours, so obviously it isn't all bad. However, once you learn a few details about the simulation -- which are not at all obvious and which you probably won't find from playing the game, but only from reading guides -- the game becomes much easier and almost repetitive.

    The game has a tutorial, but one you learn those details, it seems that the tutorial was deliberately misleading about those details.    … Expand
  6. adamgbg
    Dec 13, 2020
    10
    One of the best city building games I have ever played. Hard to learn at first but when you do times fly.
  7. maciek82
    Dec 12, 2020
    8
    The game is fairly small, made by single developer, doesn't feel like that at the beginning, but you will find out once you put few hours into it. There's not much content and not much late game challenge, however the main gameplay mechanics is great, UI is good, the game is very polished and overall it's one of the best city builders ever made, even now few years after release. I suggestThe game is fairly small, made by single developer, doesn't feel like that at the beginning, but you will find out once you put few hours into it. There's not much content and not much late game challenge, however the main gameplay mechanics is great, UI is good, the game is very polished and overall it's one of the best city builders ever made, even now few years after release. I suggest to download some good mods to enhance late game play.… Expand
  8. gracjanski
    Nov 3, 2020
    10
    This is surely a great game nowadays and a masterpiece, because it is done only by one programmer. In contrary to many other city sims you need to be active all the time and manage buildings, collect resources and send your adult persons to certain jobs. This is something new and I do have fun with it. The beginning is more like a survival game and takes only few time. After that you canThis is surely a great game nowadays and a masterpiece, because it is done only by one programmer. In contrary to many other city sims you need to be active all the time and manage buildings, collect resources and send your adult persons to certain jobs. This is something new and I do have fun with it. The beginning is more like a survival game and takes only few time. After that you can focus on building a big town and spend many hours to do so. So yes, this game is not so short, as mentioned here by some users, maybe it was the case years ago, but not nowadays. And if you want to have more buildings and more end game, you can try some of the mods.
    The tutorial is great and you have 3 difficult levels, so it is not so hard to get into the game, but later on it will be more and more complex.
    Graphics looks very good, especially for such an indie game.
    Sound and music are very repetitive and a big weakness of the game. So play your own background music for example.    … Expand
  9. FuzzyPackRat
    Aug 17, 2020
    8
    Story: 6/10
    Gameplay: 10/10
    Music: 10/10 Animation/Graphics: 9/10 You create the story in Banished based on how you provide for your town when you've been cast out to survive on your own. It's a city builder game that doesn't try to be anything more and as a result- kicks butt at city building. This game is great for those who love strategy and multiple difficultly levels keep the    Story: 6/10
    Gameplay: 10/10
    Music: 10/10
    Animation/Graphics: 9/10

    You create the story in Banished based on how you provide for your town when you've been cast out to survive on your own. It's a city builder game that doesn't try to be anything more and as a result- kicks butt at city building. This game is great for those who love strategy and multiple difficultly levels keep the re-play value up.

    Takeaways
    Pros: build a medieval town, you decide the future of the story.
    Cons: would be great to rotate/place building diagonally, some bugs with villagers getting stuck.    … Expand
  10. lautaropw
    Jul 6, 2020
    6
    It's a pretty good city building and management, though the main drawback I encounter It's that in the endgame It just decides to stop working properly and goes absolutely nuts with your resources. Despite that It's a great game to play when you're not in the mood for some thrills or action.
  11. paulcho
    Jun 25, 2020
    8
    A good tiny game.
    However, the gameplay becomes too simple if you establish your town with all facilities, and... maybe it is just my problem, the game becomes very slow after population over 700 to 800.
    Anyway, I like this game. I will install the mod after upgrading my pc.
  12. rayer72
    Jun 21, 2020
    8
    A hidden gem. Came across this by accident, not expensive, good graphics and can run on older systems. Do not have to worry about warfare etc, only have to worrying about keeping them alive. ( its not an easy as you think )
  13. Muyrka
    Apr 7, 2020
    8
    One of the greatest City/Village Building Sims out there, but looks like it is not finished. No campaign or story mode. Becomes pretty aimless after certain development curve.
  14. 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.
  15. Tomaso
    Jun 9, 2019
    4
    Ok, ok - I get it - a game created by 1 person. And it may feel like a very good product/showreel of this person's skills.

    I really can't agree with people saying it can compete with strategies created by bigger developers. IT CAN'T. Games are not about quality/people involved ratio, games are about overall final product. Banished has decent game mechanics and the game is simple    Ok, ok - I get it - a game created by 1 person. And it may feel like a very good product/showreel of this person's skills.

    I really can't agree with people saying it can compete with strategies created by bigger developers.
    IT CAN'T.
    Games are not about quality/people involved ratio, games are about overall final product.

    Banished has decent game mechanics and the game is simple enough that these few rules give a clarity that can really engage the player. It's a breath of classic-style strategies - no rocket science complexity, just some basic rules to follow and master.

    The thing is - there is not much to master, and the game lacks any objective and does not give sense of fulfillment. First few hours may really feel good as you have to learn how the settlement works, but then - it's gone. You only have to expand, rearrange buildings a bit, get new territories so you won't run out of resources to create tools (needed for people to work) and so on and on... Not really much of a challenge left.

    I enjoyed it for ~12 hours, first 2 settlements were a trial and error playground, and with the third one I got everything right... And in any solid strategy game this is the moment when your base prospers well and you expect some kind of milestone or next Tier buildings/mechanics/challenges to come up, but... nothing's gonna happen here.

    Apart from these gameplay aspects, the game looks... not really appealling, sounds and music are only correct.    … Expand
  16. 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.
  17. Fabler
    Feb 22, 2018
    5
    Very meh, this game seems to have a good idea but it seems that it leaves a considerable amount to be desired.
  18. 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.
  19. nonameforme
    Sep 21, 2017
    9
    The base game is actually around 7.5-8.
    However, it got very active mod community and a supporting developer.

    When combined with mod such as black liquid (which expand the game to be 3 times bigger than base game with new buidling, mechanic and such), I will give this game a 9.
  20. doctor_awesome
    Jan 1, 2017
    10
    Banished is an city builder and god game where you control a group of banished people who must build their own town in the wilderness. The game achieves an incredible mood, taking you to this agrarian society where people struggle to make use of the scarce resources of the land in order to survive. Unlike most city builders, there is an emphasis on resource management - you must produceBanished is an city builder and god game where you control a group of banished people who must build their own town in the wilderness. The game achieves an incredible mood, taking you to this agrarian society where people struggle to make use of the scarce resources of the land in order to survive. Unlike most city builders, there is an emphasis on resource management - you must produce food, fuel and minerals in order to keep your citizens alive and to keep your city growing.

    The game seems quite simple at first, there are maybe 20 total things you can build (houses, roads, fishing docks storage barns, etc.) And yet there's tremendous depth. There are over a dozen types of crops or trees you can grow, and you can also raise livestock, but you only start with a small fraction of the available options and must trade for the rest. In fact, trading is essential to this game. Perhaps the most viable strategy in the game is to specialize in the production of one or two things so you can trade for things that are harder for you to produce, it's interestingly similar to an actual economy.

    The game really is quite incredible at letting you get immersed in this world and then giving you the challenging and addictive task of building a tiny hamlet into a sprawling town. It is a fairly unforgiving game, especially with disasters turned on and at the normal or hard difficulty levels. It's quite easy to have your city plunge into an irreversible decline for any number of reasons - your blacksmiths are uneducated and can't produce enough tools to supply the workforce, and in turn your foresters, miners and log-cutting laborers can't work to provide your blacksmiths with tools, and short of a lucky boat arriving with hundreds of tools for trade, there's no way you can dig yourself out of that hole. It sounds frustrating but it's also a great challenge, and this example shows how interdependent so much of the game is - you have to arrange for everything from school access to planned forests for a sustainable supply of wood or your town just won't make it.

    On the frustrating end, quarries and mines will eventually run out of supply, and you can't reclaim the space they use. The intended solution seems to be for you to transition to trading for minerals, but in practice they just don't come in frequently enough, and you end up reloading the game 30 times to get the "right" trader to come in. That's basically cheating and it totally breaks the immersion, but it's the only way to get enough stone, coal and iron once your town is quite large (900+ citizens). I get that finite minerals is a very realistic thing to include, but it makes it very hard to have a sustainable city that you can just blissfully play for days. Instead, it feels more like you're building a teetering house of cards that you have to keep from collapsing until you hit whatever achievement you're going for.

    It's still a fantastic game that I come back to quite a bit. Perhaps it even makes my list of the best 10 games I've ever played. It really is like nothing else.    … Expand
  21. Allthat
    Jul 2, 2016
    9
    This is the best city-builder that I have ever played. Period. It's very simple and easily accessible but boy is it addicting. I have wasted many hours playing this game, hours I should have spent revising for finals, that's how good this game is. I want more games like this, simple yet deep enough to engage the player for long periods of time. And a bonus is that this game runs fairlyThis is the best city-builder that I have ever played. Period. It's very simple and easily accessible but boy is it addicting. I have wasted many hours playing this game, hours I should have spent revising for finals, that's how good this game is. I want more games like this, simple yet deep enough to engage the player for long periods of time. And a bonus is that this game runs fairly well on low-spec PC's, so nobody has an excuse not to play this game.… Expand
  22. theNILE
    Jun 2, 2016
    3
    Sadly lacking. To give you an example, you get two types of houses, one which uses up your precious stone, and the other which uses the easy to replenish 'logs'. There are no tents, no mansions, but good news, there is a homeless shelter! And yes, they called the wood resource logs, and there are no planks! This game sorely needs the ability to upgrade structures and add more diverseSadly lacking. To give you an example, you get two types of houses, one which uses up your precious stone, and the other which uses the easy to replenish 'logs'. There are no tents, no mansions, but good news, there is a homeless shelter! And yes, they called the wood resource logs, and there are no planks! This game sorely needs the ability to upgrade structures and add more diverse buildings.

    There are no enemies, not even wild ones. Even though I had natural disasters on, nothing happened after hours and hours of play. Nobody even got sick! My herbs sat in storage until a trader came along who valued them at 4. Yes, things have value in this game, but mostly either traders don't want a lot of things, or the price is simply static. Trading in this game is pretty lame, since I just made hundreds of wool coats and stored thousands of venison - which stayed fresh forever - trading was just a matter of letting people do their jobs and then waiting for it to transfer to the trading post and trading it off.

    Everyone except young children are workers in this game, and 12 yo's seem to just help out with whatever they feel like doing (unless they are a student), even if it's working in the quarry... Now the thing here is every worker is a part-time labourer... I had my tailor walk all the way through my town to cut some wood when they weren't busy, because I wanted to remove the resources in the area... Now, the trees behind the building the tailor works at really wasn't good enough, yet for some reason, they wondered off to do something when I may be relying on them to produce as many of a resource as fast as possible if it's an emergency.

    When someone isn't healthy... What do they do? They keep on working and getting less healthy... But it seems they don't actually need anything. If I needed to assign them to simply labourer, then it wasn't obvious and it's a pain in the ass in the first place. So... What do they need? You're never told.

    Labourers will pick up resources to place them in depots. If somebody is chopping down trees so someone can build there, they have to move the resource.... So they walk to the nearest depot, even if it's miles away... Why not just move the resources to the side of the building site? This just forces you to drop a depot down and then remove it.

    Why don't hunters and foresters live in their buildings out in the wild? And why don't they need fuel for fires? It makes no sense    … Expand
  23. bigsilverhotdog
    May 1, 2016
    8
    Now that Banished has mod support and its first major free expansion mod made by the community (Colonial Charter) it is finally worth recommending to fans of builder strategy games like Anno or Simcity, and EASILY worth recommending at that. It went from "meh" to "wow" purely through the modding community. Before CC and the minimods that improve CC (Sawmill, 1 day is 1 day, CC FountainNow that Banished has mod support and its first major free expansion mod made by the community (Colonial Charter) it is finally worth recommending to fans of builder strategy games like Anno or Simcity, and EASILY worth recommending at that. It went from "meh" to "wow" purely through the modding community. Before CC and the minimods that improve CC (Sawmill, 1 day is 1 day, CC Fountain mod, etc) Banished was a great idea and a great platform but without much game in it. Plus it had tons of bugs and AI problems.

    Now it's finally much more refined and the mod community has expanded and fixed the game up and made it worth playing, very similar to what they did with FTL. The future for Banished is now very bright, and I fully expect more and better mods in the coming year(s). It's easily worth a purchase now, especially when on sale, and I can only see it improving in the future. Buy it on GOG, not Steam, and support the DRM-free revolution.

    I did both, but only because I bought it on Steam before it was available on GOG.    … Expand
  24. 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
  25. XDavidX
    Nov 23, 2015
    10
    The game is just amazing. I love play this game. For me this game is amazing ! Nothing more to comment because this game is amazing ! I rate this 10/10
  26. Greenman131
    Oct 25, 2015
    10
    This game is a serious balancing act that is perfectly executed and well thought out. An easy to understand and thorough UI that is beautiful to the touch. People may give this game bad reviews because it's hard, that's the point. The game was DESIGNED to be challenging, that's like giving a horror movie a 2/10 because it was too scary. This game has thought of everything from TownThis game is a serious balancing act that is perfectly executed and well thought out. An easy to understand and thorough UI that is beautiful to the touch. People may give this game bad reviews because it's hard, that's the point. The game was DESIGNED to be challenging, that's like giving a horror movie a 2/10 because it was too scary. This game has thought of everything from Town Management to Resource Caps. If you love to sit down for a good hour or 2 and play a beautiful game, then buy this, give Shining Rock Software however much this game is, you owe it to yourself to play this and learn precise resource management as well as city planning. Seriously, but this game!… Expand
  27. Yosa
    Aug 24, 2015
    1
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. So I have played this city builder a few times and just noticed I never got rid of it after the last experience.(it was not a good one)

    I decide to see again why I downloaded it. I loaded up an existing city that seemed well off and saw that a school could help. I build a school then I wait,..... some town members die even though this is a good setup. I figure the education thing is somewhat important so I make it a priority, years later no school.

    I have now the capacity in resources to double my village size, I have every
    thing maned to a degree, 8 spare worker, lots of housing and everthing they need, and yet, death, oh and the school is still not built.

    The game is inconsistent in the extreme and bugged when building, im aware of the time delay over distance mechanic, was coded as a bad script; aaaaannd, delete.

    This is a game that has a pretense of logical settler then just gets rediculous with is game mechanics.
    secend and last time I bother with this game?, Made me play twice, hence the disapoinment.    … Expand
  28. 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
  29. ThePCGamer101
    Jun 24, 2015
    8
    Banished, developed by just one man under his one-man indie game company Shining Rock Software, the game has pulled me into hours of playtime and I have already played 5 hours of this game (28/12/2014) within two days from when I bought it (26/12/2014)!

    However don't be fooled by this game's city building genre like other games such as the SimCity franchise and the Anno series, this    Banished, developed by just one man under his one-man indie game company Shining Rock Software, the game has pulled me into hours of playtime and I have already played 5 hours of this game (28/12/2014) within two days from when I bought it (26/12/2014)!

    However don't be fooled by this game's city building genre like other games such as the SimCity franchise and the Anno series, this game is more of a survival, village/town building strategy game where you're main focus is trying to maintain a small village of people while trying to survive starvation, diseases, natural disasters and fires, and don't think this game is a walk in the park unlike other games mentioned, this game is challenging even on Easy difficulty! This game is not for people who like city building games where you manage a whole city and not every single individual like in Banished.

    The graphics are simple but this is of course a strategy game and graphics are not really the main focus in this type of genre, I would however congratulate on the water and rain/snow effects, they are really well done and it becomes even more immerse. The soundtrack, although very repetitive, you will be more immersed by the sound effects of you're town/village coming to life more than just the music.

    The AI, the villagers AI is a bit stupid at some points, for example, an outbreak of some disease broke out and the people that were infected were right next to a hospital but instead they walked over a bridge I built and then went back to the hospital to get cured, and thanks to that, a few more villagers got sick as well! The AI is not the best AI I've seen in a strategy game.

    Although the game is fun and challenging, I still feel that the game is still a bit empty, there is not a lot of stuff to do, no more natural disasters such as earthquakes etc... just tornadoes! And even though there is immigration from the Nomads, there is no invasions from other neighboring towns/villages, no wars unlike games such as the Civilization series! Plus sadly there is no Multiplayer/Co-Op in the game, so if you wanted to play this with you're friends such as the new SimCity game, this is not the game for you!

    The game is a mixed bag for some, although I love this game and has really pulled me in into playing more and more, it may not be enough for some people, especially with some of the "missing features" the game does not include or the level of challenge/difficulty which may put some people off. It is still a great game to play, especially if you like Strategy and the city building genre like me and you would like to play something different!

    The game does support Steam Workshop and some Workshop items do make the game a bit better. I am a bit upset however that the developer hasn't done as many updates as I intended, I can understand that he is just one man who developed this fantastic game, but a bit more updates would make it a bit better!    … Expand
  30. Triasadi
    May 19, 2015
    8
    Banished is a great city builder. The game is fun and challenging because it's balanced. The tutorial is great and pretty easy to understand. The graphics looks realistic. Banished is simple but a fun and challenging game. Everything is quite balanced. And events that happen in the game is very realistic like accidents, and disasters.
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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.
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  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.
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