Builders of Egypt Review (PC)

Take a gander at any historical city-building game from the past decade or two, and you’ll eventually find yourself spiraling down a rabbit hole that always leads to one of two faithful IPs: Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile, or Pharaoh. It’s between these two beloved whirlpools of evergreen prosperity that Strategy Labs’ latest sandbox sim, Builders of Egypt, finds its place atop the pyramids, eager to prove itself as the next best spiritual successor to the timeless duo. Unlike its chosen influences, however, Strategy Labs’ era-centric sandbox sim decides to reinvent the wheel by implementing fresh and seemingly modern design techniques, which serve as the collective basis for the game itself. And it works — at least for a short period before the cracks eventually begin to appear, which we’ll cover in further detail in a moment or two.

In a last-ditched effort to unearth a modern-day relic from the sandpit of ever-gracious city-building love letters, I found myself boarding Builders of Egypt, a game that, as far as I could tell from the generous collection of buildable structures and economic incentives, was to be the next place I’d soon call home. With that familiar desire to build on the borders of the Nile and shape a new frontier for Egypt, I set out to take the reins, curious to know whether or not I had what it took to make history.

The New Nile

First impressions of Builders of Egypt weren’t great, I’ll admit. It wasn’t due to the lack of objects, scenery, or buildable landmarks, mind you; it was the sheer clunkiness of the UI itself, which immediately made it clear that, in spite of its best efforts to nudge me down a path of righteousness and prosperity, I’d soon be met with an impenetrable wave of shoddy mechanics and half-baked tutorial segments. It was during those opening portions—the initial floor plan period in which your only major goal is to lay the groundwork for your settlement—that I swiftly began to spot the issues with the process.

In a rather straightforward way, the game initially asks you to place a structure down in a specific area, which, in turn, will allow your citizens to move in and thrive in their own respective boroughs. The issue is, even if you do follow these guidelines, they’re never actually correct, which makes the tutorial not only confusing, but annoyingly redundant. For example, if you happen to follow the instructions to the letter, then you’ll still, weirdly enough, bump into several issues that require some unspoken advice to alleviate. And, fair enough, this could quite easily be the way the game works, but the fact that even the tutorial doesn’t know how to teach you the basics certainly speaks volumes about its lack of competence and systematic integrity. But, if you stick with it, you’ll eventually begin to make sense of its faulty logic. Not a great start though, really.

The Sandbox

Builders of Egypt pulls on a lot of the same strings as its competitors, in the form that each borough has its own needs for economic growth. For example, when you allocate a citizen to a home, then you also need to consider several other factors, including where the nearest place of work might be, as well as whether or not they’ll have their individual needs met in order to contribute towards the development of the Nile. Sadly, a lot of this isn’t explained to you, nor is there an option to learn without having to subject yourself to countless trial-and-error shenanigans. It doesn’t help, either, that the NPCs lack the basic skills to aid your efforts to improve your homestead. Simply put, the citizens often struggle to comprehend how to do their duties without losing their way, or forgetting their purpose, weirdly enough. Again, not great.

Builders of Egypt is a sandbox game that requires a tremendous amount of time, sweat, and perseverance to grasp the fundamentals of building a functioning society that evolves on its own accord. It’s the time between the preliminary stages and the latter chapters that proves to be difficult, as it rarely holds out its hand to guide you through the motions or provide you with a tutorial that’s digestible and structurally sound. And it isn’t just the building that proves to be an issue; the currency—bread—and the importing and exporting aspects are also troublesome and fairly temperamental. The problem here is that, as much as the game promises to deliver a fantastic endgame, it doesn’t make the actual journey of getting there a whole lot of fun — and that’s a shame, because I would’ve loved to expand the horizons and explore the vast corners of Egypt.

From Bones to Blocks

From a graphical standpoint, Builders of Egypt has a surprising amount to offer, so long as you’re able to gloss over the pixelated water and wooden characters. I’m not saying that it’s a pretty game, but it certainly captures the beating heart of a periodic time piece that’s both thematically correct and visually appealing. On that note, I just can’t find anything to prod at; the audiovisual components aren’t really an issue, but perhaps that’s down to the fact that they’re overshadowed by a significant amount of mechanical drawbacks. Either way, if I was to take a look at the product as a whole, then I’d probably struggle to find sense in criticizing the sub-average visual effects. That isn’t a major problem, so I’m willing to park it. Well, for a short period of time, anyway.

Of course, it isn’t all doom and gloom on the Nile; in fact, Builders of Egypt does provide a carefully crafted rags-to-riches campaign with plenty of side quests, economic rewards, and time-centric content to keep you hooked throughout the initial sections of the world-building process. Granted, a lot of these things could do with some additional TLC, but given the fact that the game stems from an independent developer who has the tenacity to make vast improvements to the inner structure of the blueprint, I can’t help but praise the devotion to the project. Again, there’s still a fair ways for it to go before it reaches the apex of the pyramids and finds its identity, but for the time being, it’s still an Open Beta in disguise, and I’ll stick with that consensus until the appropriate tweaks have found their way into the mainframe.

Verdict

Builders of Egypt clearly set out to reinvent the wheel of historical city-building games by introducing a few new, albeit worryingly janky and tedious UI elements, to the pre-existing architectural blueprint of the beloved genre. Unfortunately, due to a combination of broken tutorials, half-baked HUD features, and a staggering quantity of wooden citizens, said wheel just doesn’t turn in its current state, nor does it do the kingdom of modern-day city-building games a lick of justice, for that matter. It’s a crying shame, too, because the game has the potential to be something much greater, but it’s due to several incomplete fixtures that the love letter to Pharaoh just falls short in comparison to its dated and, let’s face it, vastly superior counterparts.

Perhaps Builders of Egypt should’ve launched as an Open Beta, or even as an Early Access version, if only to keep the backlash from spreading like wildfire in the aftermath of its recent debut. If, say, it launched with an immeasurable amount of problems, then I’d have no issue with pointing them out and returning at a later date to play a slightly more complete version of the same product. Alas, that isn’t the case here; it’s a broken game through and through, and as such, it desperately needs a significant overhaul in order to meet the minimum requirements of a fully functional city-building sandbox. Does it have the capacity to achieve the desired result? Absolutely — but not without the added help from numerous hotfixes and improvements. And on that note, I’ll be parking it, at least until it finds a way to make amends for its flaws.