Floodland Reviews
Performance and pacing problems mar an otherwise novel and comprehensive survival city builder.
Floodland is a city builder that triumphs because it focuses on its citizens as much as the city. A strong narrative both in its story and in your interactions with the clans means constant decision-making that'll always make you think in a way that city builders rarely do.
Floodland is an intriguing city-builder that manages to be intuitive and also quite complex in its game systems, but sadly it's also filled with many technical hiccups that can slow down (and potentially halt) your progress. The foundation is solid and there is a good game beneath it all, but the game will probably need a couple of patches to really shine.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Floodland is a great survival sim that constantly forces you to think about your actions and make tough choices.
Vile Monarch's post-apocalyptic city-builder puts its people first to great success but walks a fine line between providing too much or too little to do.
Floodland not only asks if you’ll sink or swim when the world ends, but if you’ll plunge your arm into the murky depths to pull others up with you or step on their heads to save yourself. Its ability to look toward the future of civilisation without losing sight of the individuals who will form it is insightful. It lacks a certain spark that would make it great, and some unfortunate bugs let it down in the mid-late game, but I look forward to returning to the floodlands once these teething issues are ironed out.
Floodland is a very strong strategic game with solid gameplay mechanics. The world is fascinating to explore and the narrative campaign introduces new layers of complexity. Defects are few and far between with little impact on the overall experience. Kudos to Vile Monarch.
Review in Italian | Read full review
In any case, I’ll continue progressing further in Floodland. While my first impressions are certainly far from positive, I’m hoping that things become more interesting down the line. You can expect our finalized review score by the end of the week.
The solarpunk genre is here and only is going to grow as our climate starts to transform. Plenty of people are going to find a way to express their existential dread at a problem that seems so big. There will be plenty of corny stories about rebuilding a world from the ashes of the people we were before. Where Floodland has a leg up is in its subtlety. You aren’t constantly talking about who you want to be and how you want to run your apocalypse town. You are showing who you are by how you build it.
Despite its shorter lifespan than most management games, Floodland remains a good surprise with its unique context and its attractive theme (ecology).
Review in French | Read full review
Overall, Floodland is an absolute must-play for fans of the survival simulator genre. The game runs smoothly, controls well, and has enough depth in it to keep players coming back for more. The bleak world of this post-climate change disaster is immersive and beautiful looking, and Floodland is also a great beginner-sim for players who may be new to the genre, with its classic research trees, simple mechanics, and well-crafted tutorial are easily understood at any skill level.
Vile Monarch packs an experience that manages to stand out in the panorama of post-apocalyptic-themed city builders, at least on the aesthetic front. From the point of view of gameplay we would have preferred to see carried on that vein of innovation that distinguishes the management side of clan relationships.
Review in Italian | Read full review
At first glance, Floodland isn't 't the most complex, especially when looking at previous creations from developers of games like Frostpunk. However, it has a distinct and detailed aesthetic that grabs one's attention. Small figurines of people running around gathering resources or sleeping under the stars. it was a pleasure to follow, while the details of the various ruined buildings or rusty towers gave a nice feel to the game's atmosphere and past. If you are a lover of survival sims, Floodland is for you.
Floodland is an interesting post-apocalyptic city-building experience, but it lacks depths in some of its core mechanics.
Review in Italian | Read full review
There was a lot of replayability factors in Floodland I loved, and a strong political message. If you love micromanagement games, this had a treasure-trove worth of content.
Floodland is a surprisingly complex survival sim with a unique aesthetic and setting, but is that enough to keep it afloat?
Vile Monarch brings us his latest game with Floodland, a post-catastrophe city builder where the choice of our clan and the decision making will determine the future of the game. It has certain touches that give it originality and the fact that the creation of missions and islands is random will allow us to replay it several times.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Floodland rises above the surface when the depth of its mechanics are given the space to breathe. It strikes a brilliant balance between complex systems that are slick and accessible, while offering a satisfying level of micro-management gameplay. For all of its wonders however, this bristling settlement sim can run aground of stagnated progress and unwieldy inter-clan mechanics on occasion, but nothing should stop you rebuilding humanity in this beautifully desolate world.
Floodland is a formidable survival city builder but it's not a masterpiece that will blow everyone away. As such, it will have a hard journey if it wants to carve out a fan base from the market of the somewhat niche genre, which is mostly occupied by Frostpunk fans by now.
A simulation game focused on the peoples' life, rather than the world destroyed by climate change. Simple UI and tutorials completed with unique art seems suitable for beginners of the genre. However, resource limitations and bugs that sometime feel unreasonable make it difficult to head to the later part of the game.
Review in Korean | Read full review