All Will Fall tries something different and makes city-building fun again | Hands-on preview

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As I step onto a battered ship in the heart of nowhere, with endless ocean stretching out in every direction, everything feels hopeless. In this post-apocalyptic city-building game, it’s on me to rebuild humanity and gather precious resources while ensuring everyone survives. It’s an old tale, but All Will Fall offers a unique sense of fulfillment. Not just the usual progress equals success kind, but in building massive structures that can withstand the test of human life.

In All Will Fall, there’s a lot for you to handle, but the rhythm of events quickly becomes clear. Explore, discover resources, and establish paths to them; grow your settlement, ensure everyone has food, water, and shelter; and navigate through whatever unexpected challenges come your way. Despite being the end of the world, this game world is surprisingly lively and colorful. As your settlement expands, it becomes more beautiful. Each survivor you encounter belongs to a specific role such as worker, engineer, or sailor, each with unique skills. It’s important to know when to utilize these abilities.

Gathering wood, debris, water, food, and metal formed the essential part of my trial playthrough. Acquiring these resources allowed me to enhance our living conditions, explore various ventures that boosted our community’s growth in numerous aspects, and gain insights about what the complete game might offer. I constructed homes for my survivors and started adorning them, amassing crucial materials to ensure our continued prosperity, and essentially shaping this new existence we found ourselves in.

In the far-off horizon, there were resources waiting to be tapped, and I needed a means to access them. By constructing a bridge or pathway, I could subsequently deploy workers for collection. What I didn’t foresee is how physics would significantly influence the design of robust passages for my people to traverse safely. Each attempt, whether successful or not, offered an opportunity to learn and adapt, which appealed to me immensely. Once a secure crossing was established, thoughts could shift towards erecting structures in this new area.

In All Will Fall, it’s crucial to employ both creativity and intelligence as you design your vast city. Without strategic planning and thorough research, your inhabitants may find themselves lacking the fundamental resources necessary for their survival, physically and mentally. Additionally, you’ll need to adapt to fluctuations in sea levels throughout the day, as well as address potential threats from beyond your community borders. Moreover, ships may approach seeking to join your community, and each decision rests upon your shoulders.

As you laboriously construct something demanding persistence, hours, and diligence, playing never feels excessively burdensome. Games such as Frostpunk challenge you to your utmost capabilities and demand much from you. Despite encountering numerous hurdles, you’ll never feel overly penalized for erroneous choices. Life carries on, but if you’re ready to exert yourself, All Will Fall offers a gratifying city-building experience that acknowledges your dedication and strategic decisions.

Even though it’s just a pre-release version, I found myself quite captivated by my initial playthrough of All Will Fall. The visuals are breathtaking, and the physics-driven mechanics for constructing and managing your community bring an innovative twist to the strategy genre. Unexpected events that require quick thinking and keep things exciting without disrupting your world are an intriguing addition, introducing new challenges to conquer. I can’t wait to dive deeper when it officially launches sometime in 2025.

All Will Fall is coming to Steam in 2025.

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2025-01-22 20:45