They Are Billions

 PC
User Score
6.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 164 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 92 out of 164
  2. Mixed: 41 out of 164
  3. Negative: 31 out of 164

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  1. apokalipto
    Aug 13, 2023
    9
    Very good game. I enjoyed playing this game a lot. I strongly recommend this.
  2. kerkdeller
    Jan 8, 2023
    7
    Im not too well versed in strategy games, but Im glad I found this as a more simplified RTS experience. Feels very reminiscent of Age Of Mythology. Can be frustrating to spend 1 hour + on a match only to fail and have to start all over again, but that's generally the gameplay loop of these games.
  3. MaximumGaming
    Aug 7, 2022
    6
    I think the developers dropped the ball big time, the campaign missions are very bland, there are no interesting characters or set pieces.

    The hero missions are a bore, you walk your hero around a large complex and slowly shot things. where's the interesting dialog or interactions? The hero is underutilised the points you put into him are simple things like higher attack or health, why    I think the developers dropped the ball big time, the campaign missions are very bland, there are no interesting characters or set pieces.

    The hero missions are a bore, you walk your hero around a large complex and slowly shot things. where's the interesting dialog or interactions? The hero is underutilised the points you put into him are simple things like higher attack or health, why can't you give him abilities that help your army or make him semi powerful by himself to encourage reply. He doesn't even join your army.

    The swarm missions are dull, we could of been given different objectives with a small force etc.

    Games like Starcraft 2, warcraft, spellforce, command & conquer deliver a much more immersive story which this game sadly lacks.

    To sum up the campaign disappoints in every way possible, it's only worth buying for the survival mode.    … Expand
  4. Strelock
    Feb 18, 2022
    1
    no saves during the missions. good that i played for free. it is not worse any money
  5. Scherzade
    Feb 16, 2022
    9
    I find the concept and tide of the enemy is really attractive - it is a zombie horde game, tons of brain eating waves of corpse is exactly what I expected - However, I feeling when I quickly adapt to the game, I start feeling quickly loosing interest as well. perhaps the reason is, that I prefer micro control and enjoy when I manage tons of things altogether.
  6. Bibikelis
    Dec 7, 2021
    10
    На пс 5, просто очень мало и конкурентов. Достойная игра , всё кто любит стратегии обязательно к покупке!
  7. Ksie
    Feb 4, 2021
    9
    Классная стратегия на выживание. После появления компании стала еще лучше, хотя и весьма затянута.
  8. destinical
    Jan 26, 2021
    10
    This game is really underrated. Most people gave bad score only because of its poorly executed campaign. However, the core gameplay is of genius level! I've never enjoyed such rts masterpiece since the time of Warcraft 3, Age of Empires 2, Rise of Nations... I've seen some games inspired by They Are Billions, but sadly nothing comes close to its level and uniqueness. Despite some of itsThis game is really underrated. Most people gave bad score only because of its poorly executed campaign. However, the core gameplay is of genius level! I've never enjoyed such rts masterpiece since the time of Warcraft 3, Age of Empires 2, Rise of Nations... I've seen some games inspired by They Are Billions, but sadly nothing comes close to its level and uniqueness. Despite some of its flaws, TAB deserves more recognition. I guess it will be a long long time until I enjoy another superb rts.… Expand
  9. RealPlayer666
    Dec 20, 2020
    6
    Strong 6 score. There is too many completely rubbish technology's in game, it's almost impossible to play at many different way (RTS suppose to have that option), and you can bite you enemies (this is strategy game not arcade). However nice graphics, high difficult level and many options.
  10. CGlenn79
    Dec 18, 2020
    9
    This review is strictly for the Zombie survival portion of the game. I did not play the campain.

    Wow, This was some fun. I have played this game numerous times and at first took me some time to actually pass the map at 100%. I refused to lower it any more to beat it. I am not the avid gamer that can beat it at 800% percent but I do find 180% is about all the challenge I can handle.    This review is strictly for the Zombie survival portion of the game. I did not play the campain.

    Wow, This was some fun. I have played this game numerous times and at first took me some time to actually pass the map at 100%. I refused to lower it any more to beat it. I am not the avid gamer that can beat it at 800% percent but I do find 180% is about all the challenge I can handle.

    Since I started playing they have added a few more things for both the colony and zombies. This has added its own unique challenges and has kept the game going.

    The game does get a bit repetative and has a slow part at the beginning while you are not making money, have any troops. It gradually increases as time goes on to the point you have to pause to take care of things. If you are looking for a fun cheap game give this a shot. You will enjoy it.    … Expand
  11. lucorp
    Dec 12, 2020
    9
    What happens when you combine steampunk with spawning zombie hordes and make game really (I mean like really really) hard? One of most enjoyable base building + tower defense indie strategies.
  12. kretas
    Dec 2, 2020
    10
    I never felt that challenged in a game in the last years.
    Some people don't like the no save option, but there is,
    how much I tried to abrupt close the game because of a stupid mistake I made, It always jumps back to the latest point reminding me that I have to deal with my mistake even when its meant having hours of planning wasted. I really adore this and kept me pushing myself and    I never felt that challenged in a game in the last years.
    Some people don't like the no save option, but there is,
    how much I tried to abrupt close the game because of a stupid mistake I made, It always jumps back to the latest point reminding me that I have to deal with my mistake even when its meant having hours of planning wasted.
    I really adore this and kept me pushing myself and perfecting my strategy.
    Love it!    … Expand
  13. Violett
    Sep 30, 2020
    8
    Much was said about the campaign - it has many flaws, like dumb and boring hero missions, unability to reset research points etc. But the game itself is really challenging on high difficulty levels and really satisfying. Finished every mission in the campain on 200% difficulty and really enjoyed it.
  14. Golconde
    Sep 16, 2020
    9
    It's a tough game. It will challenge you. One thing to know about this game is the campaign was released after early access where before all you had access to was the skirmish. The skirmish is where this game shines. It's where the twitch streamers started a cult like following for the game. I read a review once where someone said "its a shame the campaign wasn't perfect like theIt's a tough game. It will challenge you. One thing to know about this game is the campaign was released after early access where before all you had access to was the skirmish. The skirmish is where this game shines. It's where the twitch streamers started a cult like following for the game. I read a review once where someone said "its a shame the campaign wasn't perfect like the skirmish because it kind of brings attention away from it".
    If you're looking for an rts that will challenge you then this is the game. From a long time rts fan this is one of the best. Game devs even started copying its game play style including the Command & Conquer vets at Petroglyph Games with Conan Unconquered.    … Expand
  15. cmfrip
    Jul 28, 2020
    6
    The game is crude, badly designed at times and certainly throws punishment at you . However the actual game dynamics do work and of course with all good puzzle games, winning after a long effort is worth it - it can be quite rewarding.

    It sure is nice developing the knowledge to manipulate the game in your favour - but it is an RTS city-builder - so this comes with the genre and it    The game is crude, badly designed at times and certainly throws punishment at you . However the actual game dynamics do work and of course with all good puzzle games, winning after a long effort is worth it - it can be quite rewarding.

    It sure is nice developing the knowledge to manipulate the game in your favour - but it is an RTS city-builder - so this comes with the genre and it succeeds in being good at that. In this way, it can be quite addictive. If it did not have it's flaws I would give it 7/10 – so I will give it 6/10 – it is a good game if it's not flummoxing you! Its better than Dungeons 3 for sure!

    So if you like Sim/strategy/Tower defence/Puzzle games or you are a sadist, then you should get this when its at a decent price. £25 is too much for a game that is taking Warcraft 3 and adding to mechanics (Dota did it, but that was 20 years ago) especially since I would opine key features are missing or it is just so buggy. I would pay £10-15; it is worth that for sure. This is on my wishlist therefore(I played on a game pass).

    There are several mission types, but the base-building one is it's forte because the way combat is, it's missable (given units behave like on C&C or warcraft); They sit there firing and that's it. The variation seems welcome though.

    Steam punk and zombies are well traversed themes, and to bind them together is not an indication of creativity, rather a cede to get footfall, and although there is creativity there, I am not amazed by it.

    Most audio I turned off though - Did not like the battle chatter or the music. The music is OK for the theme, romantic Orchestral type music you would listen to whilst hob-nobbin' with the rich technocrats of a steam punk era.

    About it's perceived flaws:
    -The worst sin this game commits is making you play without saving; You get one automated save game every five minutes, which is not long enough to stop anything in this game. This is one of the most miserable aspects of the game. Play for 2 hours, catastrophe occurs. Do it again. Absolute misery. Thankfully there is a mission forfeit option....
    -The game design requires you keep your settlement closed tight and all areas cleared: The problem with that is that the dynamics do not allow for mistakes. A single zombie getting into your settlement will result in absolute catastrophe and often enough this little problem is best solved by being observant - i.e. you going back and forth between places to ensure the z's do not get to where they should not be - this can get taxing very quickly.
    -This is compounded by the announcer not being specific sometimes - or changing lines so you are not quite sure what the problem is.
    -Camera seeking to locations where the disturbance takes place often requires an extra 5-30 seconds to find the offender(no indicator-you need to find them manually). However, Z's at the best of times do not look much less than citizens, infact citizens when hobbling home after a long day, seem to shamble.(I would too after a hard day's toiling!).
    -The resource monitors indicators also are tucked into the bottom right hand corner, and really could have been presented in a different way... I often stare at this and come away with nothing.
    -Did I mention about the building UI? i.e. not describing fellow building resource usage so you have to guess (1 of many bugs nuances)
    -Additionally to that, you cant overlap a building's coverage – This can be very frustrating -especially when alarms are going off , or you need to do your 1 minute patrol.
    -AI can be dumb so it will sit there and not shoot anything, so they need hand holding ALL the time!
    -path-finding AI can also cause you problems i.e. walking through z-wilderness instead of a settlement...
    -Adding to this, the way the walls work can block thoroughfare, but don't tell you(untill all hell breaks lose and an army walks round, rather across a gate)
    ***This list gets longer...***

    Its not too bad! Restarting a 2 hour game, however, really is :/    … Expand
  16. HowardV
    Jul 23, 2020
    4
    It has many good things, but bad things are much more

    It is a game with good graphics but with absurd and exaggerated difficulty, it is a type of game that at the slightest error you lose everything and you have to start the learning curve again, it is very slow and difficult, it is quite repetitive in its missions and its difficulty is unwarranted It is a great waste of time for    It has many good things, but bad things are much more

    It is a game with good graphics but with absurd and exaggerated difficulty, it is a type of game that at the slightest error you lose everything and you have to start the learning curve again, it is very slow and difficult, it is quite repetitive in its missions and its difficulty is unwarranted

    It is a great waste of time for little or no reward, you could be playing other types of games and make better use of time

    With this game you can lose an entire day of your life, and not advance anything ...    … Expand
  17. SubaqueousDream
    Jun 19, 2020
    7
    A solid game with great replayability but the annoying voice lines from units are extremely repetitive.
  18. hoanns
    Jun 5, 2020
    5
    Kinda repetitive, but cool setting. Kinda repetitive, but cool setting .....
  19. Metagrikling
    Apr 13, 2020
    0
    Failed my research points and had to reset whole 33% campaign.... spend 20 hours to find out that I can not advance because of trash game development.

    Just refunded the game and uninstalled. DO NOT BUY IT.

    Really, the game is not worth any money yet. Game is a deep testing/development stage.

    Come back after 2-3 years... maybe?
  20. denwer
    Apr 8, 2020
    5
    I totally agree with the Vasot, at the first glance game looks OK, but there are only 3 types of missions ( "hero", "kill swarm(zombies)" and "build colony"). Your colony almost always located in the open area, which means that you can be attacked from 4 sides.
    "Build a colony" is the most disappointing mission type, where you should attract 600 colonists, for example (3rd mission), so    I totally agree with the Vasot, at the first glance game looks OK, but there are only 3 types of missions ( "hero", "kill swarm(zombies)" and "build colony"). Your colony almost always located in the open area, which means that you can be attacked from 4 sides.
    "Build a colony" is the most disappointing mission type, where you should attract 600 colonists, for example (3rd mission), so you should build about 60-80 houses and protect them from zombies, which is more boring and irritating, than challenging task.
    Also, I was got upset, that you open most of the units and buildings using research tree where you apply point which you got from completing the missions, accept from this research tree you have very limited variety units and building.
    Also, there is no classic save/load opportunity, you quit and the game remembers this moment and continues from it. You cannot restart the mission, which is a washout. I made a mistake in 1 mission (build a colony) and concentrate on houses for colonists and not army and zombies attacked from 3 sides and units are slow and sometimes stuck in buildings, so I almost loose, so I wish there were restart and quickly save and load options to change your strategy when you find mistakes in your planning.
    Also sometimes buildings explode for no reason, maybe it interesting mechanic for hard or nightmare difficulty, but at normal difficulty (which I played) it also irritates a bit.

    All in all, the game has an interesting theme and some gameplay mechanics, but after playing 3-4 hours I cannot call it enjoyable. I waited that it would be like Frostpunk, interesting and challenging, but about zombies, but this game has more boring and irritating moments, than challenging.
    Maybe I missed something, but I cannot recommend this game at the current state.    … Expand
  21. TheTota
    Feb 29, 2020
    8
    They are billions is a very captivating strategy game, that takes you through a campaign of "reconquest of the world" that has been overtaken by hordes of zombies. Completing it will take well over 60-70 hours that include missions with their own goals and specific environment where base building and map cleaning will be the main focuses. But the campaign also contains some third personThey are billions is a very captivating strategy game, that takes you through a campaign of "reconquest of the world" that has been overtaken by hordes of zombies. Completing it will take well over 60-70 hours that include missions with their own goals and specific environment where base building and map cleaning will be the main focuses. But the campaign also contains some third person exploration missions where you will slowly get pages of newspaper that will help you understand what happened to the world and what caused the infection.

    While the campaign contains a lot of hours, and diverse experiences, at some point the missions will feel very similar and less interesting, despite the addition of new enemies and technologies.
    It's important to know that there is NO recovery points in missions, losing mean starting all over again, which could be pretty frustrating, but once you've figured out how the game works I haven't found it that difficult overall.

    The game runs on a very powerful engine, allowing really thousands of units to live their lives on the map. The post-apocalyptic feel has really been nailed too, and the steampunk universe is very well represented. Some characters seem interesting but lack of a bio or some kind of history. For example, one of the units is a small british man (or perhaps a dwarf?) piloting a massive zombies killing machine. It just feel pretty random without any explanation on the character.

    So, They are billions is a very unique game, with its own feel and gameplay that will hook you up into a pretty long campaign, that will sadly lose interest mission after mission once passed the 50% because you will be repeating the same patterns over and over again. But don't get me wrong, the feel of having a big army crushing zombies, or seeing your defenses take down some hordes, or even having your economy thrive makes an overall enjoyable experience.    … Expand
  22. Wiebe
    Feb 26, 2020
    6
    Fun to play at first, great concept, but gets tedious and repetitive after a while, single player campaign was also bad.
  23. Teufler80
    Feb 9, 2020
    4
    It was funny at the beginning, but the missing ingame save und sometimes unfair amoubts of enemies are quickly killing the fun
  24. Almoststan
    Feb 6, 2020
    7
    A fun and aesthetically pleasing game that can easily give you hours of entertainment, but for me its campaign kind of lacks a certain something. Its difficulty curve too, seems way off. The early game, especially for newcomers will feel very brutal, as the condition for victory seem way too steep early game, in particular some unnecessary time constraints on missions, and very highA fun and aesthetically pleasing game that can easily give you hours of entertainment, but for me its campaign kind of lacks a certain something. Its difficulty curve too, seems way off. The early game, especially for newcomers will feel very brutal, as the condition for victory seem way too steep early game, in particular some unnecessary time constraints on missions, and very high population counts if you have yet to research cottages. Speaking off, some research buildings are absolutely necessary, like aforementioned housing, to complete certain missions. Other research items will make the game an absolute cakewalk, in particular the farms, thermal plants and wasp turrets. Once those get built about 80% of all future missions are a cakewalk.… Expand
  25. Thilus
    Nov 18, 2019
    5
    The game's main problem is that it is absolutely unforgiving. If anything goes down (and it takes just one zombie to overtake your whole colony, mind you!), you can retire the mission and start again. And the missions take hours sometimes. One wrong move, and you're done. And that's on "normal" difficulty. I mean, there are lower difficulty levels, but for some reason Easy is very easy,The game's main problem is that it is absolutely unforgiving. If anything goes down (and it takes just one zombie to overtake your whole colony, mind you!), you can retire the mission and start again. And the missions take hours sometimes. One wrong move, and you're done. And that's on "normal" difficulty. I mean, there are lower difficulty levels, but for some reason Easy is very easy, while Normal is very hard. That's just bad balance. The game has a lot of potential, but it's badly executed. I don't want to spend time on game that's going to punish me for little mistakes or some hasty decision when I'm playing on Normal. Sorry, move over game.… Expand
  26. Chaltor
    Oct 23, 2019
    10
    Polished. Fun. Hard. Addictive.
    A bit of a hard learning curve.
    Get it and shut up and play.
  27. nilsy
    Sep 24, 2019
    5
    Frustrating game, its basically a very hard tower defense game.
    My biggest grip is that if you invest lot of effort and time the payback is not large enough and the game felt "fiddly" which is a nightmare with snowball effects.
  28. GurmpyCoolCat
    Sep 15, 2019
    7
    Great concept and fun gameplay. This game is more difficult than others that I have played of this genre. I would say each solo match is just so very long. They need a faster speed option for advancing time. You will kill a whole lot zombies!!
  29. marcantoineg
    Sep 14, 2019
    1
    I usually like rts. I supported the game in early access but the campaign is uninspired, long, boring and ridiculously difficult. Even mission 1 will take you many tries. Don't bother.
  30. aeito
    Sep 10, 2019
    9
    Great RTS. The campaign is a little difficult. But I admit it: a great game. I've been hooked since I installed it.
    I recommend to play the campaigns that the community has done with the editor in steam-workshop. great game.
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Awards & Rankings

68
#68 Most Discussed PC Game of 2019
53
#53 Most Shared PC Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
  1. Games.cz
    Aug 19, 2019
    70
    Solid, but unbalanced mix of strategy genres. It suffers from several suspect design choices that all but destroy the tempo of the game, further exacerbated by a lacklustre story campaign.
    Read full review
  2. Game Informer
    Jul 23, 2019
    80
    They Are Billions is an interesting mashup of classic RTS, tower defense, and survival that successfully conjures up that “one more game” feel, assuming you can persevere through countless defeats.
    Read full review
  3. Wccftech
    Jul 15, 2019
    85
    They Are Billions offers an almost perfect gameplay loop, mixing tower-defence with city building and exploration, as you balance resource-management, defence and offense, all against your ever-impending doom at the hands of a world infested with the undead. The only downside to a game that looks and sounds great, offering a tense experience in a compelling setting, is a campaign that doesn't fully make-use of the gameplay loop perfected by Numantian Games, leaving the campaign feeling weak, compared to the survival mode, which is the real draw.
    Read full review
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