The newly arrived Rimworld Anomaly expansion, which transforms the iconic colony sim and management game into a more horror-centric experience, is already off to a great start, racking up an initial 90% Steam review score alongside the base game’s mammoth 98% rating. Lead developer Tynan Sylvester of Ludeon Studios says the team is “loving your Anomaly stories,” but has tweaked the balance slightly in a new update aimed at helping the horror side blend more seamlessly into the core game, with options to tweak your preferences for how much you’d like to see.
Rimworld Anomaly has been a really satisfying addition to the strategy game, packing it full of all manner of weird and worrisome encounters with everything from menacing monsters and old gods to mind-controlling artifacts and much more. “It’s been incredibly gratifying to see people having new kinds of stories in the game,” Sylvester, who said prior to Anomaly’s launch that he hoped it would invoke new emotions, writes in his latest developer update.
He notes, however, that while the overload of Anomaly made for a fun launch, the team quickly realized it might be a bit too overbearing for long-term play. “Originally, we had Anomaly throw a ton of content at you because we wanted to be sure people would experience all the new stuff and see how much was really there.
“We may have pushed a bit too far there,” he explains. “Anomaly has tons of content and exposing it all too fast was saturating the experience. This is great for a certain type of intense, focused playthrough, but the game should also support other playstyles.”
To resolve this, a new Rimworld update has arrived that reduces the amount of Anomaly-related content you’ll encounter during a playthrough, with more events from the base game and its other expansions allowed to take place instead. You also won’t need to interact with every single entity in Anomaly before you can advance the story with the monolith, and an additional researcher has been added to the starting scenario, meaning things should progress faster and there’s more reason to engage with repeat playthroughs post-Anomaly.
A new set of sliders found in the game settings gives you even more granular control over just how Anomaly-focused you want your playthrough to be. “If you want it to be pure horror when the monolith is active, you can,” Sylvester says. “If you want the horror to be a light sprinkle on top of the rest of your Rimworld, you can do that.” These settings can be tweaked at any time, and will also work in games started on previous versions of Rimworld.
Ludeon Studios has made a few other minor tweaks in the update, which is live now. “We’re still watching and considering other changes,” Sylvester concludes, “so please keep telling your stories, and thanks for your effort in writing useful and rich feedback.”
If you just can’t get enough spookiness in your life, we’ve searched high and low for all the best horror games on PC right now. We’ve also carefully selected the best management games to play in 2024, if that’s more to your tastes.
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