Strangers in a Strange Island: Pioneers of Pagonia
Settle your people in this free-flowing city builder.
‣ Pioneers of Pagonia
From: Envision Entertainment
Platforms: PC
Release: 13 December 2023
Steam Page • Demo Video
Please note: Due to a technical error, we lost the original video and replaced it with a test version that ends abruptly. We also substituted with some developer screenshots.
Help your people settle across Pagonia, a chain of islands with friendly tribes, evil bandits, and plenty in between. Pioneers of Pagonia is a stunning and open-ended city-building strategy game where you create organic-looking settlements. Lay roads as you please in an improvisational grid system, and research over 40 buildings to manage more than 70 types of goods. Set the blueprints, and your little pioneers will swarm around, raising buildings and working resources.
Some management is required to ensure you keep ahead of the right resources, equipment and trained workers. The game also has hostile forces in the shape of bandits and wild animals, though the demo does not reveal these parts of the game. But you'll take it all in stride as you naturally expand your holdings across a vast procedurally-generated map, and the zen of creating your settlements and watching them grow is ample reason to replay this game multiple times. There are many city-builder and settlement games, but few come close to being this fluid, colourful and fun. Pioneers of Pagonia launches on 13 December.
Best Demo Moment: The town is expanding!
AIIG's Take: A great part of the indie scene is how it's enabling veteran game developers to pursue new ideas. Pioneers of Pagonia is the perfect example: it's the creation of Volker Wertich, a German game development icon and the person behind the popular Settlers games. That level of experience is very evident—this game looks good and plays very well.
One criticism is that it's not clear what the goals are. It's also hard to screw up, at least at first. But as your settlement scales, forethought in the proximity of buildings and the development of tools and people will help your pioneers flourish or wallow in mediocrity. Yet even then, this is a fun game. It expands eloquently as and when needed, and the entire map beckons you to keep growing. Whether you want to micro-manage or just have fun laying out your village, Pioneers of Pagonia is very engaging.
We look forward to the release in December (and if you act now, you could join the closed beta - details on the Steam page).
Explore The Game with Youtube Chapters:
📽 01:03 Time to settle!
📽 02:00 The first buildings
📽 04:18 Get the stoneworks going
📽 05:20 A building is completed
📽 07:35 Watchtowers for safety
📽 10:45 Expand the borders
📽 14:05 The town is taking shape
📽 16:30 Into the hills
📽 18:50 More housing
📽 23:20 Take care of the forests
📽 29:30 People love a tavern
📽 31:50 Let's go farming
📽 37:30 A long row of workers
📽 40:00 More housing
📽 46:50 Sometimes, we just watch
📽 52:50 Adding some new buildings
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