RIMWORLD: ROYALTY

Is there anything more delightful than an expansion pack? Especially for a game you love? Especially when you haven’t played it for a while? Especially when it slots seamlessly into existing content so you can experience the whole thing all over again? Yes, there is. When the expansion is a surprise! I’ve played a lot of RimWorld. I’ve won on an ice sheet on ‘rough’. I’ve eaten many tens of raiders. I’ve explored all manner of emergent stories, even moving a married couple of miners to a nearby hex with two cows “on their honeymoon”. Suddenly, there’s more.

I started a new game, with Royalty enabled. The first new thing that happened was when a noblewoman fled into my colony. She was being chased by a snow hare. She had been out for a walk, to meet a secret suitor, or something. I can’t remember. I was too busy laughing as I popped a single bullet into the hare’s head. I escorted her to the makeshift bunker we’d hastily erected after surviving our crash landing. She wanted milk and insect jelly. We picked her some wildberries instead. Then she left, on a snooty shuttle, sent by her loyal subjects.

Subtle changes to user interface support this glut of new quests. As quests arise, you’re given time to decide whether to pursue them (on a new tab), rather than having to accept or decline immediately. I had a moment to judge whether I could take down this enraged hare before committing. Does this make the game less exciting? Well, another refugee, Daniel, also radioed ahead, but refused to disclose his situation. Three days later, we were neck deep in spiders. (He’d been stealing jelly and gotten himself covered in pheromones.)

So, no. It’s still nuts.

Quests definitely result in more coming and going, too. At one point, I sent two workers (a drug addicted, less useful pair) to help build a hospital in a pirate village. They were away for ten days. I have no idea why. My colony knocked up it’s first, threebed hospital in an afternoon, along with a monument requested by some local toffs. There are also (generally) more visitors, both welcome and otherwise. Allies wanted me to attract a cluster of mechs (and their weather jamming device) away from them, sending a group of six elite troops to stay, as backup.

Marked as only two stars of difficulty, I accepted, quickly whipping up barracks and an extra kitchen. Although the mechs weren’t immediately aggressive, their encampment assembled one Scyther every day. There were drop beacons which would summon three mechs each, as soon as anything was disturbed. Shields prevented structures from taking damage, except from close range. I cleared the camp over several hours of play, largely thanks to some passing boomrats. The allies bestowed royal favour onto one of my pawns. He’s now demanding a throne room.

I’m going to leave RimWorld halfway through my current game, for now. As I write this, COVID-19 has locked us down (and there’s been a lot of preparation for my teaching work, so things have been busy). If RimWorld has taught me anything, however, it’s that people should not be expendable (especially visitors, if all of their high tech gear is acidified when they die). Also, that you should stay inside during toxic fallout and build hospitals early.

Stay well, play RimWorld Royalty and I’ll report back on how things ended up for this game, in the next issue.