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Going Medieval is a RimWorld clone - with one brilliant, game-changing differenceBeaming with delight
Beaming with delight
Even when Going Medieval did scuttle into early access at the start of the month, I have to say it seemed a blunt-clawed specimen. It was the same asRimWorld, basically. As in, identical, save for a medieval setting and a ton of missing features. After a moment or two to get used to the UI, I was playing my first game on autopilot, and all it really did for me was make me want to play RimWorld. And then I discoveredthe wooden beam.
Going Medieval | Launch TrailerWatch on YouTube
Going Medieval | Launch Trailer
Yes, that’s right. You can build multi-storey constructions. That’s Going Medieval’s killer feature, and I’m saying that with a completely straight face.
Honestly, it spanners my brain to think that it has taken this long.Dwarf Fortress, the game which RimWorld itself took inspiration from, was originally played in a flat, one-layer world. It gained its so-called z-levels at the end of 2007, and the effect was transformative. Even so, to the vast majority of humanity still stuck on the steep side of the famous Dwarf Fortress learning curve, the pleasure was entirely inaccessible. Indeed, so were all of the rest of its pleasures, until RimWorld appeared in 2016
But RimWorld, for all its accessibility, had taken the step back into two dimensions. And despite all the marvellous complexity it would go on to acquire in other respects, its flatness would remain hardwired into the foundations of the game. Dwarf Fortress had three dimensions but wasn’t accessible; RimWorld was the other way round. As such, the world had no choice but to wait another five years to get it a man that could do both.
Going Medieval is that proverbial man. And yes, I know. What about 2010’s Bum Forts, Nate? Fuck’s sake, man, how can you ignore 2014’s Skyscrapers Of The Dogmen?Actually, Nate, I think you’ll find 2012’s criminally overlooked Goblin Slumlord did both things magnificently. OK, sure. I know other games have reached for this particular grail, over the years. But they were either shit, or abandoned, or simply unlucky, wizening instantly into skeletons under the pitiless gaze of the immortal Steam Knight. Through a combination of luck and judgement - and assembling the triforce of colony simulation, multiple z-layers and an easily comprehensible interface - Going Medieval has shot the Steam Knight right in the bonce.
Look at this lovely cellar full of barrels and that. Doesn’t that make you feel good?
Also, to be fair, while Going Medieval is still in that fairly barren, aimless state which all early access sandbox games are born into, it’s a much more solid play than RimWorld was at the same point in its lifecycle. But to be evenmorefair, it owes that head start almost entirely to RimWorld. Developers Foxy Voxel have cherry-picked bits and bobs from all over that game’s lifespan to populate their day one feature list, while also building in a bunch of the quality of life fixes which RimWorld dev Tynan Sylvester patched in as he went along.
RimWorld didn’t have modelled seasonal changes for quite a while into its early access period, but it’s already implemented in Going Medieval and looking great.
It’s very competently done. I was impressed with how rarely my little yokels acted with disastrous lack of foresight, and how little time I had to spend either micromanaging them, or working out why the hell supposedly basic things weren’t happening. It helps that I already know RimWorld back to front, I suppose. But the fact that my instincts translated across so effortlessly shows what a robust job Foxy Voxel have done.
I would also say that Going Medieval lags most behind its inspiration when it comes to a pretty key part of a colony sim - the colonists themselves. At the moment they just don’t feel particularly different beyond their raw competence at various tasks, and they don’t have any real identity as characters. I only thought of mine as “the research woman”, “the stabbing man”, and so on.
Ye Olde Backstory.
Given that there’s also very little going on with random events and the like, Going Medieval really struggles to achieve the kind of self-seeding story generation which made Dwarf Fortress and RimWorld almost magically compelling. It’s a particular shame, given that Grey Alien’s excellent Helen Carmichael is working with Foxy Voxel as the game’s writer. Where her output is used, it adds some much-needed flavour to the game, but it doesn’t have anywhere near enough time in the sun.
