Banished ▶ Trailer
Banished screenshot 1Banished screenshot 2
IndieSimulationStrategyCity BuilderColony SimSurvivalSingleplayerSandbox

309 playing

Peak in the last 24 hours: 600

Peak in the last 7 days: 717

Banished Steam store

Game description

In this city-building strategy game, you control a group of exiled travelers who decide to restart their lives in a new land. They have only the clothes on their backs and a cart filled with supplies from their homeland. The townspeople of Banished are your primary resource.

Basic info

DeveloperShining Rock Software LLC
PublisherShining Rock Software LLC
PlatformsWindows
Steam DeckPlayable
Release dateFeb 18, 2014
Price

Prices by IsThereAnyDeal

Minimum specs

OSWin XP SP3 / Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 8
Processor2 GHz Intel Dual Core processor
Memory512 MB
Graphics512 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible card (shader model 2)
Storage250 MB
steamyze

Review Analysis Score

Based on 434 reviews from the past 1 year

85.0/ 100
Top 40%

Steam rating: Very Positive (90%)

Metacritic: 73 /100

Review analysis summary (Reviewed Oct 23, 2026)

Getting a village through its first hard winter is the heart of Banished, which scores 85.0, top 40% of games we analyzed.

👍 Strengths

231 reviews say it is fun and hard to put down, and some admit they keep returning to it years later. 27 praise the strategy, noting that food, firewood, tools and population all have to be balanced and every decision matters. Gameplay ranks 451st of 1396. 25 enjoy the world and its calm atmosphere, with some highlighting the peaceful music and sounds, and Story & World ranks 321st of 1096. A few recommend community mods for extra buildings and content.

👎 Where it falls short

32 reviews find it repetitive once the village is stable, saying the same worker allocation loop repeats, and some say the vanilla game needs mods to stay fresh. 25 say there is too little content after the early struggle, with few goals or milestones in the base game. 23 describe rough onboarding, where a short tutorial leaves players to learn by losing villages to starvation and cold. Content Volume ranks 659th of 1351, and Tech & Support ranks 696th of 1399.

Representative reviews Original reviews ↗

“dev drops deep city management game that keeps attention the whole time” · 231 reviews
“calm and peaceful atmosphere with pleasant sounds and music” · 25 reviews
“graphics style aged very well” · 23 reviews

How it holds up

−50+5

Controls, difficulty, progression and depth
Mentioned in 62% of reviews · Top 40% of the games we've analyzed

Difficulty +1.75 · How hard it is, how the challenge ramps, and whether it feels fair
Positive “challenging difficulty that rewards understanding and adaptation” · 21 reviews

Progression 9% · Onboarding 18% · Freedom 12% · Strategy 20% · Controls & feel 5%

Plot, characters and the world
Mentioned in 19% of reviews · Top 30% of the games we've analyzed

World +3.21 · Lore, atmosphere, and how immersive the setting is
Positive “calm and peaceful atmosphere with pleasant sounds and music” · 25 reviews
Negative “game is bland and uninteresting even with mods” · 1 review

Story 0% · Characters 0%

How much there is to do, variety and replay value
Mentioned in 28% of reviews · Top 50% of the games we've analyzed

Replayability +3.05 · Reasons to play again — runs, randomness, New Game+
Positive “infinitely replayable with achievements to unlock” · 12 reviews
Negative “only one winning strategy, limited replay value despite procedural generation” · 1 review

Volume 12% · Variety 11%

Graphics, art style, music and sound
Mentioned in 16% of reviews · Bottom 40% of the games we've analyzed

Visuals +2.40 · Graphics, art style, and animation
Positive “graphics style aged very well” · 23 reviews
Negative “looking for better graphics and more immersion” · 5 reviews

Audio 6%

Playing with others, the community and servers

Not enough data — only 6% of reviews mention this.

Community +3.52 · Who you play with — how many, and how friendly

Playing together 1% · Servers & Connection 0%

Pricing, cheaters, balance and matchmaking
Mentioned in 8% of reviews · Top 40% of the games we've analyzed

Balance -0.07 · Whether classes, weapons, and builds are evenly matched
Negative “resource balance is non-existent, colonists constantly fail at jobs” · 8 reviews

Anti-cheat 0% · Pricing 4% · Matchmaking 0%

Bugs, performance and developer support
Mentioned in 16% of reviews · Top 50% of the games we've analyzed

Developer support -0.13 · Updates, patches, and how devs respond to players
Negative “solo dev disappears after success, no support” · 16 reviews
Positive “excellent mod support and genre-pioneering design still holds up” · 1 review

Stability 5% · Performance 6%

Grey means too few reviews mention it to trust. — means almost no reviews mention it.

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