Before We Leave is a post-apocalypse city-builder about moving humanity from the point where Vault-Tec has Logan’s Run itself into obsolescence. You are the omnipotent god that is trying to take people from hovels while rebuilding humanity to be spacefaring tech-giants fighting space whales. No, that’s it, it is happy Frostpunk once you’ve unveiled that the human race can once again emerge from the hundreds of years of slumber in underground bunkers. Though, I think the few lines before you start a new session that mention a galactic disaster ties into whatever Chris Chibnall forgot to wrap up in Doctor Who recently.

With the recent Xbox port, I’ve been playing the hexagonal resource management game while also swearing at myself for not thinking about the preservation of trees. Yes, that was before I realized what the tutorial was actually telling me, and I’d completely ruined an island by devouring all of its natural resources. Before We Leave is a bit of a strange one because it is colorful and about rebuilding. This is the diametric opposite of practically all post-apocalyptic survival resources management city-builders, i.e Frostpunk. That isn’t a bad thing, but it does seem to corner itself into a niche that the min-maxing sociopaths who want child labor camps are not flocking to in droves.

In fact, I am reminded of a niche little digital strategy board game called Buccaneers, Bounty & Boom!, which focuses on traveling from island to island collecting resources, and fighting the other players. Of course, Before We Leave doesn’t have other players. My comparison is focused entirely on the resources, the island hopping, and general colorfulness. Gathering basic supplies and researching down the tech tree, you’ll begin to get more excavation tools to break up the dilapidated ruins of the planet’s past and become more capable of space travel. That’s when the real danger kicks in, providing you aren’t stupid like me and harvest every tree before you rebuild the shipwreck.

I like the idea of space whales, but I also like the idea of space Wales because of the idea of Star Trek: Discovery‘s Klingons trying to pronounce Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch is hilarious. Ok, silly joke that makes three people laugh aside, the “antagonist” just being a whale that attacks you is ridiculous, and just the right touch of Douglas Adams that makes me happy. What else is going to attack you in space? An angry tin can that is banging on about this whole “racial purity” nonsense? I think not.

All this said it would be heinous if there weren’t things to complain about, most notably the somewhat awkward controls. Naturally, the right analog stick does retain its position as your camera look, but the left stick also operates as a bit of a cursor that can pull you along too. I don’t understand if it is because it’s new and unconventional that I’m jumping back in disgust or if it is the awkwardness of the whole affair. You do get used to it while playing, but it does take a few moments to snap into position in your head.

Equally egregious are the settings. You can alter the difficulty of the game to your heart’s content, and I won’t contend that as a good point in Before We Leave‘s favor. However, the actual settings menu is lacking. You have some basic audio sliders for SFX, UI, and music, but outside of that the options menu is leaving me wanting more, especially after my next gripe. Yes, I do like the ability to alter the frequency of autosaves, alter the brightness of the night, reset hints, and change how hints, notifications, and pins show up. However, that’s it.

City-builder games are a beast into themselves with heat maps, tool-tips, and graphs, sometimes to the point where the games are best described as information overloads. However, it sometimes helps when you can see that information or that you know what you are looking at. I’ve had UI do two things that are irritating, one is a bug that didn’t show what I’d just clicked on, the other was UI extending beyond the edge of the screen. With no UI scaling at all, there are portions of the island and planet resource menu that are unreadable, though you can parse some idea of what it is meant to provide you with.

Ultimately, I do enjoy Before We Leave as a relaxing city-builder with a family-friendly take on the otherwise often bleak resources management focus from Frostpunk, or even Rimworld and Medieval Dynasty. There are enough sci-fi/apocalyptic themes to blend in with others, but it takes a different, more optimistic way that also puts Before We Leave in its own little camp. Fun, interesting, and enjoyable, though a little buggy in minor ways and lacking in options in more significant ways. You can’t really fault it too much as it does what it is supposed to and does it well enough.

An Xbox One copy of the Before We Leave was provided by Team 17 for the purposes of this review.

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Before We Leave

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• A solid city-builder with resource management.
• Space whales.
• Just a cozy game to cuddle up with.

Cons

• A little buggy in places, mostly saving and UI.
• lack of UI-scaling.
• Iffy controls.