The bigger you build in strategy games, the more divorced you become from the ground-level human drama. In the opening turns of Civilization 6, Age of Empires, and Cities Skylines 2, you feel a connection to every citizen - each decision has a measurable effect on a knowable, empathetic number of people. By the closing stages, however, you don't really care. More buildings. More units. More land. Combining the space-age style of Starfield with the automation and colony-sim mechanics of Factorio, The Crust is a new Steam strategy game that tries to remain identifiably human. If you like the people-management tension of Frostpunk, this could be for you.
In many ways, The Crust feels similar to a variety of its strategy game peers. Humanity has expanded its various mining and colonization efforts to the Moon. As the commander of the lunar base, your job is to extract resources, use them to create evermore efficient machines, and cut trade deals with various corporations back on Earth. The further you go, the slicker and more automated the whole process becomes. If Factorio and Satisfactory gave you a thing for conveyor belts, The Crust will feel like home.
But there are two things that set it apart. First, The Crust is localized entirely to the Moon. This isn't a grand strategy game where you expand ever outward, earning more and more stuff but gradually losing touch with your base of operations. It's small scale. You forge a relationship with your little mining operation, and the objective is to take a vertical slice of the greater colonization project and make it your own.
Also, there's a human drama. In some automation games, it's just you and the machines - your only companions are robots, and your goal is to build more of them and make them increasingly productive and advanced. Not so in The Crust. You have a human staff and you need to monitor, cater for, and safeguard their needs. Similarly, there are multiple factions and corporate rivals with whom you can choose to side. Do you want to be ethical and financially precarious or evil and rich?
Available on Steam today, Monday July 15, if you want an alternative to the likes of RimWorld and Cities 2, The Crust is definitely worth a try. You can get it here.
Otherwise, you might want some of the best 4X games, or maybe the best management games available on PC.
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