Industries of Titan - PC (Steam) Review

Industries of Titan by developer and publisher Brace Yourself Games—PC (Steam) review written by Susan N with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

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Over the years, city builders and colony simulators have tried to break out of the mold by adding some elements to keep things fresh. At first, it seems like Industries of Titan does that as it is unique in a couple of ways through shipbuilding, converting colonists into workers, and exploring a new map. Unlike other colony builders, this game doesn’t rely solely on building a massive city like Cities: Skylines. It feels more like a post-apocalyptic Civilization game with a beautiful score, impressive gritty graphics, and the threat of looming rebels that will come after you. While it has some interesting elements, it’s missing a few things to make the game fantastic because right now, it’s a plain jane entry in the genre with stellar add-ons. So let’s take some shots at the features and gameplay first.

Gameplay

Industries of Titan requires players to balance a couple of aspects in order to win the game. First, a successful colony has to be built in such a way that it has enough power to run, resources gathered and refined through processors, several monetization stations to gain credits, and adequate defenses to keep rebels away from your newly acquired land - which is on loan by The Council. 

In order to explain the gameplay loop, this will be separated into two sections where the colony-building aspects are presented first. Then we’ll cover the defensive and combat aspects in order to paint a full picture of the game.

Colony Building

Industries of Titan begins when you land on a new planet that has been ravaged by the gritty and barely habitable environment. As the council has sent you on a mission to make the planet habitable - as best as possible - it seems like the entire purpose of the game is to reach that point. 

One of the first challenges to face is adequate power generation which is done by using harmful Xethane gases. As you collect the planet’s natural gas, it has to be converted to energy that can be used by your equipment. The problem is that while power generation isn’t difficult, collecting this gas is harmful to colonists. 

Another challenge that you face is that many machines need to be placed in factories. Those machines come in different sizes which come into play when you need to Tetris the power generators, habitation pods, and material refinement machines. The only good thing about this design is the ability to create blueprints for your builds. Otherwise, you will need to upgrade the factories to have an additional floor to give you space. 

Finally, you need to balance power generation with colonist health. This in itself, isn’t an issue as other post-apocalyptic games have similar balancing acts, but increasing the number of colonists isn’t necessary. Assuming you have medic stations and air purifiers to keep the people alive, you can get by with a low number of colonists to suit your industry. Setting up residential buildings for more colonists isn’t required as the bulk of their importance to the game is credit generation. You will need to convert colonists into workers for specific jobs, but once those are fulfilled, you can get a new batch of colonists from the shipyard. This part of the gameplay could have been more interesting if we had to deal with worker bots instead of humans. It just felt a bit flat for me when all I had to do was request more colonists from the shipyard, instead of improving the air quality or living conditions. Additionally, there are achievements for losing a certain number of colonists. That’s not a meaningful achievement, just saying. 

In essence, the game is a nice colony builder without a ton of consequences. Even when you gain the favor of the council, the game isn’t complete. Your task is to fulfill a ton of ridiculous objectives that aren’t necessary. The council will require a ludicrous number of parks or resources collected to ‘win’ the game. One would think that the looming threat of rebels would be required as a victory condition, but it isn’t. And on that note, let’s talk combat.

Combat Gameplay

Industries of Titan features a looming rebel threat where you need defenses to keep them at bay. This is a different take on the colony builder as most of them focus on milestones or solving some challenges. By adding tension to the game with the threat of rebels who will attack your newly formed colony, seems like a great idea. Unfortunately, it falls short. 

You can spend resources to build defensive turrets to thwart any territorial race and these turrets will keep most of the rebels at bay. On its own, their addition to the game would be mediocre at best. However, the developers included the purchasing and customization of your own ships to defend the colony. And like the buildings where you have to Tetris the machines in, ship design requires you to do the same. 

There are three or four ships to choose from, which range from low armor to high armor, that you can customize with life pods, weapons, and engines. Even with the option to customize your own ship layout, the addition of combat is unnecessary. You end up wasting resources to take on the rebel encampments only to find that none of it is necessary to complete the game objective. While it was a neat and refreshing change, not enough was done to make combat a meaningful inclusion. This is regrettable, in my opinion.

Tech Tree

Colony builders often have a tech tree that locks game progression behind it, but Industries of Titan doesn’t do that. Instead, the tech tree serves to make colony-building efforts easier by providing increases to production speed or less waste generated by colonists. But, in order to progress through it, you will need artifacts. 

Unlike other games, all of the industrial, military, science, energy, and council nodes are scattered away from each other. This means that the tech tree isn’t organized by category which is often done in games like this. And as there is no set path to researching the nodes, you won’t need to pigeonhole your efforts into one style of gameplay to pursue victory. 

Regarding colony-building games, this feature is a welcomed change. It allows Industries of Titan to feel fresh and different. Above all else, this is one of the features I really love about the game. 

Graphics and UI

One aspect of the game that knocks the ball out of the park is the graphics. Unlike other colony builders that focus on the UI and not a lot on the graphics, Industries of Titan has a lot of details that the average player might miss. For example, the ruined buildings sell the idea that this planet has been previously inhabited. While many ruins have a similar look, the ones that are identical aren’t placed side-by-side. Moreover, there are ruins that contain a high concentration of resources that are graphically different from all of the other grayscale structures. Aesthetically, this creates a sense of variety through its assets without overdoing it. 

Each building has a distinct aesthetic that looks and feels futuristic through the use of lighting and what looks to be decals. From the vantage point that you have, many of the buildings like the factories, the medical center, and residential buildings appear as though you’re in a tech-heavy district in a metropolis. 

Even though each building, machine, and ruin has a specific design, your colony will not look like it is designed with cookie cutters. After all, it is a planet that has gone through a ton of strife. Other colonies have failed, there are large craters that disperse copious amounts of gases, and there are other rebel colonies that will pillage whatever they can get. In terms of graphics design, Industries of Titan sells you on the challenges you will face. I’m definitely here for that.

Final Thoughts and Summary

I wish that the developers of Industries of Titan put a little more time into the game. It would have been a stellar hit if the rebel threat added more of a challenge or if there was more variety with the combat system in general. Instead, the game falls short of something amazing by focusing on ridiculous milestones set by the Council. 

Though it was a valiant effort to bring something different to the genre, I don’t feel as though it’s quite enough for avid colony-building fans. That certainly doesn’t make this game bad by any means, as it looks amazing and has cool features like blueprinting which isn’t present in any colony simulator that I can think of, but I found myself oddly bored with it. There wasn’t enough to keep me interested in playing the game for long periods of time, which is unfortunate. 

“Industries of Titan is an alright colony-building game set in a post-apocalyptic world, that oozes with potential conflict and hazards aplenty. Sadly, the game just doesn’t hold the player's interest long enough as the win conditions are bloated, the threat of being attacked is paltry at best, and the need for colonists is not as important as one might think. It’s great to kill some time with because it has some features that are different from others in its genre, but it can get quite dull over prolonged sessions."

Score: 8 out of 10”

Review By: Susan N.