Here is all I am asking for from any post-society future: let the paint and fabric dyes survive. Floodland, the newly announced survival settlement builder about building back better after climate collapse, is much more interesting to me because the roofs are bright blue, the walls are daubed in orange, the tents are luscious shades of mauve and heliotrope. Watch it below to see what I mean.
As the name suggests, rising sea levels have turned the world of Floodland into a series of smaller, disconnected islands. With a band of survivors in your care, you’ll need to scavenge and explore, reinvent technologies, and “maintain the peace between differing factions”.
The first order of business is catering to the basic needs of survivors by providing “food, shelter, water, health, security”, but you’ll quickly run out of space on any single island. That means you need to keep exploring the world in search of new land to colonise, and new resources to exploit. At the same time, your settlements will be shaped by the research choices you make on the tech tree, and the laws you pass on the “Law-Tree”.
Laws will let you an “age of equality” or a “benign dictatorship.” Which makes it sound as if you can’t go so far as to create a malignant dictatorship, so perhaps the lack of grime in the colour palette carries over to the decisions you’re making and your settlements won’t tip into full Frostpunk-style horror. Perhaps.
Floodland has no release date yet but is marked as “coming soon” on Steam, where you’ll find more colourful screenshots.
For more Gamescom coverage, be sure to check out our Gamescom 2022 hub for all the latest news, impressions from the show floor and more.