I Love A Good: RimWorld Alpha 3 Video Introduces Factions

RimWorld is a space colony sim in which you begin with a small team of survivors on an alien planet and, through Dwarf Fortress-ish indirect control, manipulate your crew into building themselves shelter, growing food, and dealing with an array of dynamic obstacles. The latest video update for alpha 3 shows that the game is growing quickly: it now has a faction system, improved AI, and after alpha 2 added mod support, a buttload of community content to try out.

Check out the explanatory video below for the full set of updates and features, while I try to avoid sounding like I'm brown-nosing.

Every time I see an old series - Dungeon Keeper, say - turned into some unwanted free-to-play steamer, I think, 'that's OK'. Why would I need Dungeon Keeper when I've got KeeperRL or Prison Architect or Maia or RimWorld or any of a dozen other indie games doing a great job of keeping a finger in and expanding wide the legacy of '90s Bullfrog?

We dipped our noses into RimWorld earlier this year, but decided it was a little too far from final release to get deep into it. That was primarily because of the AI, which would act scatty and make it difficult to advance beyond the early stages of creating your colon-y. For that reason, as cool as the faction system and cremation mod sounds, it's the suggested AI improvements that make this most intriguing. We'll look it in the eye again next month and see if it's ready to play.