Rimworld Royalty DLC Review

As I return to RimWorld for the uncountable time I find myself awash with new mechanics and things to do. With the newly released Royalty DLC, RimWorld sees itself gear more towards a very loosely story-driven quest system, more akin to a text-based adventure with how missions are given out and rewarded but with plenty of the usual birds-eye sim gameplay we’ve come to love. I am happy with any excuse to return to this beauty of a game, now I get to beautify my settlement with royal décor!

Starting up a new RimWorld game with the Royalty DLC you will be pushed into the new scenario as it were, given your first quest within the first hour of play. Normally a quest to help an escaped member of the new royal faction, from an attack via geese, terriers or other small creature that is generally easy to handle. Saving this NPC, sending them on their way and you gain your first set of favour and psychic powers.

Moving on from the initial mission you’ll have several ways to gain more favour, either from paying tribute in the form of slaves and gold, or undertaking more quests of defence, attack and other such missions that aid the royals. From time to time you’ll also play host to the royals, making lavish rooms for them to rest within alongside their bodyguards, some of which can stay under your control when the royals leave.

Moving away from a desolate world full of tribals, pirates and only a few nice people, the world is now ruled by a royal family, shifting the dynamic as well as the narrative. Whilst the introduction is centred on aiding the empire you can, of course, go against them, sneakily attacking locations that contain more psychic amplifiers and eventually attacking their settlements. Combined with the introduction of royals there are new mechanoid attacks and waves that threaten your settlement.

With new threats, new quests and new choices to make, RimWorld is just getting more and more packed full of content. The price of £15 might be a bit steep for some newcomers and even some devout fans of the game. The DLC adds in the psychic powers, quests, mech clusters, imperial tech and new music, which in my opinion is worth the price. If you’re just wanting the version 1.1 update that is free as per usual which includes better UI and quests tab, easier mod management, new UI tools and a plethora of new items, objects and enemies. Playing 1.1 combined with the DLC seems the best way to return though as you get it all at once.

The new music added into the DLC is both fitting as well as amazing to listen to, like most of the original soundtrack. With a bit of a royal theme to it, the additions flow nicely with the royals and the events that surround them. There is still the issue of playing for a while in silence as the tracks don’t roll over from one to another too quickly, but it’s still a nice change of sound to hear a new track.

With the addition of the new psychic powers and quests there comes a shift in the difficulty of RimWorld. The psychic powers can make the game a whole lot easier, from berserking your enemies into attack one another to stopping them in their tracks for target practice. On the flip side, the quests are horribly scaled in some places, which goes hand in hand with their randomly generated design, as you could kill 2 raiders and gain a power that is vastly more powerful than the difficulty of the mission warranted. You can also just stockpile raiders in your prison to trade those off to skip several titles at a time. The mechanoid raids and new clusters can also be somewhat unbalanced, due to the sheer number of them at times, which is a stark contrast to the hidden scaling of the base game. For veterans of RimWorld these will be a bit of a hurdle, though for newcomers I can see it being quite offputting.

Overall I give the Royalty DLC an 8/10, it adds in so much to a game that can already drain away dozens of hours from you. The new quests and mechanics are fun to interact with, though due to the randomness can be quite challenging or too easy with vastly overpowered rewards. While it may have some issues now I have no doubts it will be patched and updated, with several updates during my playtime I can safely say the game is in good hands as always. With such a dedication to the game I highly recommend both the base game and the DLC to anyone who enjoys simulation and management titles.

Rimworld and Rimworld Royalty is available on PC from Ludeon Studios, if interested you can purchase it here https://store.steampowered.com/app/1149640/RimWorld__Royalty/

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