Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic

City-building games are no new concept. In fact, they have been around since the dawn of Sim City before the turn of the millennium but the surprising fact for many may be that these titles have stood the test of time. These titles have barely changed they’re tried and tested format with the only real changes coming through an increased sense of scale, new building mechanics and more refined visuals. However, what if a game turned the format upside down, took away the privatisation and stripped you of your omnipotent city building godlike status. Well, Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic does just that and to great effect.

This game plays rather like your typical city builder such as City: Skylines or Sim City for example, however, the key feature of this game is the serious reliance on your own infrastructure and resources to fund and facilitate your vision making this game play similarly to the likes of other city-building title, Banished.

In Mother Russia, City Builds You

Let’s deal with the overall look and feel of the game first of all. The title really models itself quite relentlessly through the lens of a Soviet Russian, Eastern European aesthetic. The developers have clearly taken the time to come up with a look that showcases this area of the world in all its somewhat bleak and practical nature. If you picture those rather stereotypical areas such as Pripyat, Ukraine or perhaps even PUBG’s Russian based map Erangel, you’ll get an idea of the kind of thing that’s on offer here.

Don’t get us wrong, you can take this rather cold and barren area and turn it into a bright and thriving city provided your willing to work for your success. You can develop a great deal of infrastructure including mountainous road systems, train lines, hospitals, schools and much more but it’s how you do so that affects how well your city can thrive.

Very Particular

What will become apparent as you begin to piece together your city is that nothing happens without the aid of your citizens. You will be reliant on your own population to expand and thrive. So your roads must be optimised to get your workers to work on time to help sustain the economy for example. Or the schools you choose must be the best they can be in order to mould the bright minds that will be able to facilitate growth in the future.

It’s a title that not only asks you to look out for the cause and effect of the here and now, but also what effect your building will have on future development. It’s something that seldom occurs in games like this that often live relentlessly in the present moment with little cause and effect. It’s something that can cause frustration, grind your growth to a halt and surprisingly, it’s perhaps the most important part of this game’s success as a city builder.

The way you can develop certain commodities that you can sell in order to grow your economy is only a small asset of the logical and interconnected system that you will witness in this game. It’s this flawless, interwoven style that makes this more than a city builder and more of a strategic, resource management based builder game that is completely unique in its approach.

For Mother Russia!

Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic does everything in its power to shake up a stale genre of games and in turn, gives a relentlessly logical and realistic experience that will live long in the memory. There are so much detail and nuanced to be seen within this title to the point that every decision you make will have you planning years into the future to ensure you don’t unwittingly ruin your best-laid plans down the line.

Pros

• Amazing, interwoven logical building system.
• Looks quintessentially Eastern European in presentation
• So much content and replay-ability

Cons

• Relentlessly logical style can lead to frustration for some players