Overthrown Early Access Review – They’re really chucking these houses up

Overthrown has just entered into Early Access, bringing to life a new city builder for people to try. What makes this one different from all the others is that you’re not simply placing buildings and letting the world get on, you’re actively part of it trying to help it flourish. Oh, and you also have a crown that imbues you with all sorts of powers like super strength and super speed, letting you throw buildings all over the place. So, that’s pretty different.

At the opening, you can choose one of three worlds to generate in which to build up your kingdom. The Lost Isles is the smallest map, followed by the medium-sized Foothills, while the largest is Seaside Cliffs. Each has a different make-up in terms of terrain, but the overall goal is the same. Start with nothing and build up a kingdom that can see off the incoming threats of bandits and wild animals. First, you grab the crown before building a town hall from which your first three inhabitants will emerge. Then, as is custom, you’re tasked with building sawmills to start gathering wood with which you can build houses and outhouses. In multiplayer, only one person can have the crown giving them bonus benefits, but everyone has the same base powers to work together and build up the kingdom.

Overthrown is one of those titles that is simple to get to grips with but becomes steadily more complex as you progress There’s a research tree that opens up more buildings like different food shops, farms, and mines. On top of that, you have the buildings that turn resources into materials to help you build up. People will start coming to your kingdom as it grows, taking on the various jobs that are created by the buildings.

To speed things up, you can just grab a giant sawmill and sprint around to collect wood, cutting down trees like a giant saw. That is one example of how Overthrown encourages you to experiment with the world. One of the first buildings I unlocked was the butchers, which needs a steady supply of meat. Now, since the game is in Early Access not everything is unlocked yet. The research tab helpfully showed me that Woolies, the sheep of this world, will not be available until January. Another solution had to be found for the lack of meat. One of the wild animals that inhabit the world are Tuskers, essentially wild boars. They have nests dotted about, generally pretty far from town. Not that that is an issue when you have super speed. My solution was to pick up a Tusker nest, bring it closer to town, build a fence around it, and pop a sniper tower next to it. Tuskers would regularly generate and my hunter would take them out to provide meat. A good little option to consider if you’ve got a town full of hungry people to feed.

The movement in Overthrown is excellent. Sprinting like a speedster is smooth and the large maps have plenty of open space. If anyone is developing a superhero game, Overthrown’s movement should act as a base to build on. Being able to pick up buildings with your character and just move them if you don’t like where they are makes the building element nice and easy to handle. The combat is merely fine when armed with a sword or greatsword, but it’s also very basic.

Resource management is a major part of the game and things can get complicated fast. The population grows pretty quickly in Overthrown, and you need to balance that with resources to make sure the inhabitants don’t starve, or suffer from exhaustion and collapse. You need to get farms up and running, fuel produced, and create stockpiles ahead of winter. Once winter comes, you cannot produce crops and your stores will get you through. Raiders will attack in an attempt to steal the crown, but you can find their camps in the woods before they mount an attack and dismantle them. If you have a military you will need to balance their pay with the taxes you put on your citizens. Tax too high and people may leave. Don’t pay the military and they may just quit soldiering.

With Overthrown being in early access things have a way to go yet. You’re bombarded with notifications as things develop and your kingdom grows, whether they’re telling you that lines of there’s not enough houses, outhouses, or food being created. While it gives you an idea, it’s not clear enough. For example, one notification showed an insufficient number of houses with the number 1 in a bracket, so I built another house. The notification remained. I built a lot of houses, The notification remained. There are also other notifications like repair required. I thought looking at the overworld map would show me which building needed repair, but it didn’t, requiring me to check each one individually. Similarly, when you come under attack there is a notification of fighting. While the compass banner will show a red dot to indicate an enemy, it will only do so if you are close by. Again, it would be helpful for an enemy dot to appear on the world map to stop any confusion. Overthrown did crash a couple of times too, and in one instance the world just starting flickering while assets disappeared. It is, at least, all things that can be improved by a patch.

Overthrown certainly has potential but after just a few hours I felt like I had seen all I could see in the Early Access stage, at least until the next batch of new content is added in January. It doesn’t take long to unlock all the research available and once you have the town starting to thrive you’re waiting for raids to hit or explore a big but rather sparse world. Regular content updates will be needed to keep people invested in their worlds, otherwise the inhabitants will face more than a harsh winter.