RimWorld, the acclaimed sci-fi colony sim from Ludeon Studios, has announced a second paid expansion, titled Ideology, which'll be arriving in the next few weeks alongside a substantial free content update for all players.

Following on from last year's Royalty DLC, Ideology aims to enhance RimWorld's celebrated core by providing the tools needed to fashion a specific belief system for your colony. "You can play as tree-worshipping cannibals who carve skulls into every piece of furniture," explains developer Tynan Sylvester on Steam, "or blind tunnelers who shun the light, or transhumanists obsessed with perfecting the human form using exotic technology. Or be nudists, or drug-stupor mystics, or piratical raiders, or charity-focused givers, or pain-loving animal sacrificers, or dance-party techno ravers, or rustic ranching cowboys, or many many more."

Sylvester says it'll be possible to mix and match different core elements of a colony's belief system in Ideology, and that customisation can be taken even further if desired, with the expansion enabling players to individually adjust preferences in the following categories: precept, ritual, special social role, venerated animal and weapon, culture and style, unique building, tattoo, clothing, background narrative, god, and, perhaps most importantly of all, beard (more on those shortly!).

Read more

Planning ahead for Valentine's day? What could be more romantic than a co-op session with your significant other in RimWorld - something that is now possible thanks to an enterprising modder.

First launched back in December, the mod by Zetrith allows for co-operative play in a RimWorld game, with basically as many players as you want (almost). Although still in the testing stages, it's now several versions in: and starting to receive attention on Reddit for its impressive stability and accessibility.

In terms of features, the mod boasts hot joining, hosting from existing saves, chat, and the ability to connect with Steam friends. It's an incredibly smooth and professional experience, although as the mod isn't in the Steam Workshop, so you'll need to do the installation process yourself (it's quite simple).

Read more…

It's hard to believe, but RimWorld has been in early access for over five years - so long, in fact, I'd forgotten it was technically still a work in progress.

But this won't be the case for much longer.

According to a blog post by developer Ludeon Studios, the space colony sim will soon be released in full. On October 17th, players will be able to download RimWorld 1.0, which brings bugfixes and a new "food restriction system" allowing players to "determine what [their] colonists and prisoners are allowed to eat". I guess that's one way to stop someone pinching all the donuts - if only that worked in the office.

Read more…

After five years in development, superb Wild-West-flavoured sci-fi colony sim RimWorld has launched its first beta update, putting it on the "final stretch before the 1.0 release", according to developer Tynan Sylvester.

RimWorld's newest build, known as A World of Story, is the 18th major update for the game, and marks the 1,722nd day of development since work began in February 2012. "It's come a very long way since the first public look in September 2013," Sylvester said in his latest blog post celebrating the update's arrival, "It's time to start bringing it to a close, which is why version 0.18 is Beta 18 instead of Alpha 18."

As such, A World of Story will be RimWorld's last major content update before version 1.0, and all sorts of stuff is included. The traversable world map, for instance, now features procedurally generated place names to add a bit of extra colour to your miserable survivalist adventures, and there's a new swamp biome, improved melee combat, and new events to bring still more variety to RimWorld's already absurdly rich story generator.

Read more…