Generation Exile

I left a not recommended review yesterday. I don't usually do that but I honestly could not recommend the game as is at this price point. I really like the feel of the game despite its flaws and really want it to succeed. So I gave it another shot today. Here is further unsolicited advice and commentary from me. My opinion stays the same: great atmosphere, but for this price point, I expect a more polished experience, even in Early Access. At 10 to 20 EUR though, I think I would recommend it. The good news: most of what I classified as bugs was actually UX related. The less good news: I did not change that I experienced a middling playthrough for a nearly 30 EUR game. This is my third save. I realize that last time, I did not understand why a settlement connected with a green highlight curve to the organic waste storage I was placing did not satisfy said settlement needs. That's because the green color should not be trusted, only the hex highlighting effect. I believe that suppressing the curve for out-of-range connected buildings might be a good idea. It actually works that way for the water condenser at least. So maybe it's a bug after all? I really think the scrubber would benefit from a better highlighting effect than simply a camera centering during the first signal distributor connection. It's not natural to interact with an element that appeared to serve just as decor beforehand and the centering doesn't work well given that the scrubbers are right smack in the middle of the base, where you already are, given that you are working without a signal distributor. An upgraded organic waste storage does not appear to satisfy the advanced settlements one tile away requirement despite it being only 45/100 full some turns, but it does work on some other turns, which is extra weird. If during a turn, you perform an action that will e.g. satisfy a settlement, a visual confirmation of that fact would be a tremendous help. Otherwise it's guesswork until the next turn, which does not feel good. Wellbeing indications like "Sleepless nights" would really benefit from telling what is causing the source of the noise. Conclusion: I enjoyed this third playthrough better now that I know to navigate the UX. I believe the game has a good potential and hope the updates will polish it as planned. As many, I believe that lessening the price might be a good idea to gain broader appeal. I wouldn't be mad about having paid full price if more people got to experience this and helped contribute to the future of this game. Fair sailing to you, reader. [hr][/hr] [i]Previous review, for reference:[/i] The atmosphere, theme and music is great but the user experience is too frustrating for me as of now. It does has a lot of potential and I hope to upturn my review in the future. But right now, I can't recommend it. I played one hour and a half across two saves. Those are the problems that frustrated me: - [UX] in my first save, I did not understand having to unmount the scrubbers right away as I did not manage to identify them. The objective was clear, but I struggled to find them. So I thought I had soft locked myself somehow and started a second run. - [UX] this time, I found out for the scrubbers. However, I struggled with rubble for a long time, as I did not understand the facilities needed to recycle them. I eventually figured it out around turn 55, as the objectives started asking to reclaim all rubble. It made building rather frustrating in the meantime. - [Bug] then the game crashed, but I was able to restart from the save. I used 5 turns earlier just to be sure. - [UX] around the same point, one of the buildings (sludge reclaimer I think?) popped warnings in the overview, but when clicked did not require any additional resource. - [Bug] I therefore wanted to deconstruct said sludge reclaimer. But the UI refused it. Clicking the icon which worked for all other buildings simply did nothing. I then ignored the building. - [Bug/UX] One of the advanced settlements complained of not enough organic waste management facilities nearby. Which was surprising, given that I built two of them with highlight curves pointing to said settlement. I then noticed that indeed once built, the waste facilities were actually out of range (off by one). At that point, I was too frustrated to continue. I accept that Early Access can be rough on the edges, that's part of the point. But not this rough at this price point. I will be much more cautious about buying them in the future. Devs, please watch somebody play your game for two hours from scratch. This game is seriously advanced in many points (look, feel, depth of the mechanics,...) but the actual play is hampered by many issues that should be apparent by watching a newbie play. Kudos for having this game running in Proton with no modifiers right out of the box otherwise. Much appreciated. But please, fix the core gameplay. Wishing you all the best.

I have played more. The game was clearly rushed into 1.0 they probably had a deadline or something. It's clearly not finished. Everything past chapter 1 is suspect. Ability’s don’t seem to work at all even on successes. There is no real way to mitigate crisis. They say they have ability that counter balance the risks, they don’t. I played planet fall with a roster of 5 people and still the only ability that seemed to do anything are lone wolf and engineer. Could be a good game when it’s finished but it’s clearly not there yet. So calling it 1.0 and selling it for 20 feels a bit like it’s prepping to be abandoned. OLD Fun, apart from mission goals being unhelpful. Still trying to figure out what a damaged forest tile is and weather or not I just messed up playthrough with the placement of my district anchor.

Disclaimer This review is based on a short gameplay session and an early version. Some points may be fixed in the future. Pros: No major bugs (only one cut-off button). Nice art style. Interesting approach with a turn-based city builder. Character editor is fun. Cons: The game asks you to make decisions before you even know what they’re about, which feels wrong. The balancing is off: building space is tight due to the tile system. I often had to place multiple buildings because others were out of range, not because there was actual demand. The UI looks cool but doesn’t work well for me. The UI color palette is too close to the background, so elements blend in. Also, the dialog “button” is a tiny triangle—please just let me left-click to skip dialogs, especially when there’s no choice to make. The character art style doesn’t match the rest of the game. It feels like it comes from an asset pack and doesn’t fit. Feedback: It feels like the developers’ focus is off. There’s a lot of emphasis on short character scenes, while city-builder features and polishing are lacking. For example, I sometimes struggle to distinguish buildings. An option to overlay icons would help. There are icons in the building menu, but they’re not really explained or self-explanatory. Also, why do I need multiple clicks to remove demolished buildings—even when I placed a building specifically for that? On the other hand, it seems a lot of dev time went into the story building scenes and the possibility to make decisions, but those decisions don’t feel very meaningful. Another odd thing is how limited th buildings supply and storages are. The groundwater pump’s supply runs out very quickly, but you can just remove it and build a new one. Why is the recommended age 16? From what I’ve seen, it could be 6 or 12. xD I’m an academic and generally fine in English, but I still had to look up some words. The language can be quite difficult—especially for non-native speakers. The dialogs are fine, but the game would be much more accessible if you supported additional languages. Recommendation: If you like city builders, you can give it a try. However, I fear this game might stall in Early Access. Sales seem low, and considering the team size and how long this version took, I’m not sure it makes financial sense to continue development. Would I buy it again? Not at this price. Will I play it again? Probably yes—but I’ll wait for the next 2–3 major updates (hopefully they arrive).

I sadly did not enjoy the game...i liked the soundtrack and the general vibe of but the actual city-building part, i really did not enjoy: - Building space is way too cramped - Due to the effect range of many buildings this turns more into a puzzle on how to cram in the buildings so it works - Bio-Waste storages (your houses will produce bio-waste) filling up and so far no abilities to empty them -> you have limited time to get the Story done - If you want to move/remove a building because you need to change the layout due to new buildings or so? guess what you will need a special building to remove the rubble that now occupies the spot of the building you moved. And guess what? So far limited space and no ability to empty the building -> almost no room for making errors. And these are basically guaranteed as on your first playthrough you do not know what buildings you will all get, how they interact and so on.

Update 30/04/2026 As of the last patch released for Generation Exile most of the bugs that i have described in my initial launch review of the game have been dealt with, showing the commitment of the development team. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Generation Exile had been on my radar for several months, back when it was in Early Access and I saw it recommended on Steam. It drew me in due to its theme: interstellar travel on a generation ship where we are called upon to manage limited resources. Additionally, the game has a solarpunk aesthetic - a charmingly optimistic prediction of future aesthetics that is rare compared to the more common post-apocalyptic gray. The game is the debut of the Canadian Sonderlust Studios, a small team of quite experienced developers. One of the two founders, Nels Anderson, previously worked on Firewatch and Mark of the Ninja, and the other co-founder, Karla Zimonja, worked on Gone Home and Tacoma (as well as on the animation of my beloved Zoo Tycoon 2). The rest of the team also has experience in the field, with members having worked on various AAA titles. The game entered EA in November 2025 and remained there until mid-April, when it was released in version 1.0. While in EA, the creators gradually provided narrative chapters and a demo, which I played at the time and found quite complete and pleasant. I will return at the end of the review with more on the production process and the final release of Generation Exile. Starting with the genre, it’s somewhat... complex. We are dealing with city builder/colony management and production line mechanics, similar to the Anno series tradition, but on a hexagonal grid in the style and palette of the latest Civilization games, and similarly turn-based. Additionally, there is a narrative element that follows the creation of our character (the "Caretaker") and their accompaniment by two friends and assistants (the "Stewards"). Both during the creation of these -randomly generated- characters and throughout the game, we are given interaction choices through narrative vignettes, and depending on our choice, there are corresponding results. Although the vignettes are very beautiful and well-made, and are accompanied by the extremely atmospheric music of Ben Prunty (Into the Breach, FTL, Subnautica), throughout the game they seemed disjointed from the general story progression, and their impact on our colony was most of the time unclear. Specifically, it seems their existence is due to an attempt to create a connection and empathy between the player and the colony crew through our assistants. The chosen method is in the style of Crusader Kings (another genre added to the mix). So, the assistants have stat sheets with their characteristics, traits, quirks, and a... family tree. Of course, in the end, no real depth is given to these characters beyond the random events in the vignettes, so I feel that this mechanism was included more as a gimmick and a "hook" rather than serving any organic purpose. A family tree feels different when you can trace, for example, your characters' generation in CK III back to Octavian, St. Peter, and Muhammad, versus when it's just randomly generated names for randomly generated characters and their ancestors. Read our full review at [url=https://ragequit.gr/en/reviews/item/generation-exile/] Ragequit.gr [/url]

As a rule, I do not buy early access games because I have no patience with crashes or half-finished games. Therefore, I waited to buy this game until its so-called full release. It is clear to me that this game was forced into full release, not only because it crashes frequently (making it totally unplayable), but also because it feels underdeveloped in several areas.

Not fun at all. Largely, this is due to a bad UI. It simply does not do a good job of conveying information to you in a clear, actionable way. Buildings need to be within certain ranges of other buildings to work, but you can't look at the map and see what types of buildings are where, no overlays of any sort - you're expected to distinguish between buildings by their indistinct shapes. When you try to place a building, you can see lines connecting to other buildings... but it doesn't tell you if those resources are already used, and it doesn't connect to resources you're also building, and you have to roam the map to see what resources are available. On top of that, information is often provided to you through small icons that don't clearly convey what the problem is or how to resolve it, and when things break the game does random things to resolve your situation which leads to buildings being shut down and inoperative without it being clear to you. To complete the frustration, the game hides timers in each scenario but isn't explicit about it. Leave certain things unmitigated, and the game threatens to end quickly unless resolved. You accumulate waste and can't do anything about it, so you can have everything fall apart because you simply can't mitigate that issue any more. Spaces that provide resources suddenly turn out to be time-limited without warning. Some buildings need to be activated at regular intervals. And you only have so many actions each turn, and some things you initiate suddenly tie down multiple actions across multiple turns without warning. Maybe the plate-spinning, exhausting, trying-not-to-constant-collapse building is supposed to be fun, but the bad UI makes it feel like you're playing the game through a layer of soup and can't really plan anything.

I really wanted to enjoy this game. It is pretty and the themes are nice. But it is too buggy and the autosave interval is too infrequent. I encountered a couple of bugs that meant I had to reload much earlier process, including one crash to desktop.

[h1]Generation Exile — градостроительный симулятор переработки и сортировки отходов на космическом корабле[/h1] [b]Полный обзор:[/b] https://blast-games.ru/obzori/generation-exile-obzor-2026/ Наверное, в этом есть какая-то ирония, что мой обзор Generation Exile получается, и я сам это понимаю, каким-то скомканным, нескладным и уж точно не таким, как я бы хотел. Я много про что не стал писать, опустил какие-то элементы геймплея и особенности геймдизайна про которые обычно я бы рассказал почти наверняка. [b]Но это не должно вас удивлять - как игра Generation Exile не понимает, чем она хочет быть - так и я не до конца понимаю, как мне про неё писать. [/b] Hear me out. С одной стороны, Generation Exile заявляется как градостроительная стратегия, как симулятор колонии - вот прям так и написано в Steam-тегах, но при этом она не делает вообще ничего, что должны делать игры с таким набором жанров. Что это за градостроительная стратегия, где строительство по своей вариативности на уровне 4х-стратегий - идентичные друг другу здания заполняют идентичные клеточки и даже не меняют своего внешнего вида в зависимости от соседства с другими зданиями? Что это за симулятор колонии, где вы буквально следите только за едой, водой, настроением и стрессом? Ну, да - можно посмотреть семейное древо каждого персонажа, но зачем это нужно? Там и смотреть то нечего, кроме имени, пола и возраста. При этом именно стратегией Generation Exile пытается быть в первую очередь. Но играя в неё, вы не чувствуете давления, как в играх вроде Against the Storm или Frostpunk, у вас нет каких-то сложных инструментов для планирования и строительства поселения, как в той же Timberborn, о который я рассказывал не так давно. Зато в игре очень много диалогов, описаний, каких-то попыток в юмор и раскрытие персонажей, философских рассуждений и просто невероятное количество текстовой экспозиции и текстовых же кат-сцен. Я моментами ощущал, что я играю в какую-то странную вариацию на тему Citizen Sleeper, где вместо тайм-менджмента почему-то надо строить здания и собирать отходы на специальных складах. Но вот только непонятно - зачем нам это всё в градостроительном симуляторе? Как это помогает Generation Exile быть хорошей стратегией? И главное - если это всё действительно надо, то почему играть в неё примерно также весело, как сортировать мусор или заполнять налоговую декларацию?

Игра радует простотой стратегической части. Тебе не нужно продумывать сложную цепочку, все достаточно просто, но в то же время есть и вызов, по крайней мере для меня. Плюсы: 1) Дизайн. Не режет глаза, но в то же время прост и лаконичен. 2) Наличие ролевых элементов, События что случаются во время игры, немного напомнили мне Космических Рейнджеров. 3) Простота. Игра не требует от вас глубоких знаний, она достаточно простая и вариативная. 4) Сюжет. У игры он есть и он выглядит интересно, сейчас к сожалению, он проявляется редко, но я надеюсь, что это быстро исправят. Минусы: 1) Баги, баги, баги. Их в игре много, от просадки FPS, до краша сэйвов. 2) Проблемы с UI. Не всегда очевидно что нужно сделать, и где это нужно делать. 3) Не до конца понятны некоторые механики. Игре сильно не хватает подсказок для конретных зданий и объектов.