WW2 Rebuilder Review (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 & PC)

It’s the break of dawn, and the local police are once again beginning their duties to aid those who are still suffering from the aftermath of World War II. It’s cold out, and other than the smitten chips of scattered fires emitting small bursts of heat around the city, there is nothing to keep us warm. The children, who cannot return to their school due to its premises being beneath rubble and cinder, will spend today dreaming of a better tomorrow. The commuters, as much as they’d like to return to their homes, will also spend the next several weeks alternating between a rock and a hard place. And as for me? I will take this trusty shovel slouched against the remnants of my former home and begin planting new roots. I will, regardless of how long it may take, rebuild the foundations of this broken world.

Despite its rather depressing but time-appropriate, intentionally macabre nature, WW2 Rebuilder isn’t quite as gloomy as you might think. Well, it is, but without any strict time limits or unforgiving rules to follow, the game is far more akin to the likes of House Flipper or Train Station Renovation than the vast majority of its adversaries’ sandbox dominions. At its core, it’s the same formulaic blueprint that we’ve seen hundreds, if not thousands of times before—transport natural resources, shovel mud, and rubble, and slowly begin to breathe life into the fractured bones of a once booming civilization. That’s all here and more, but with the inclusion of a generous collection of European cities to explore, dynamic to-do lists to fulfill, and a fairly decent amount of tools to alternate between, WW2 Rebuilder is, to some degree, a lot more than your bog-standard construction sim.

From the Ashes

WW2 Rebuilder brings us to the aftermath of World War II—to a colony that, due to the traumatic events that shaped the European peninsula, has become a derelict archipelago of rubble and debris. The game, while not providing a great deal by way of compelling plot points, invites you to carve through several areas across Europe, and use a combination of tools to rebuild former train stations, factories, residential buildings, and several prominent landmarks. This is, to some extent, what WW2 Rebuilder centers its entire existence on: a relatively straightforward loop that primarily involves excavating the remains of a former communal site, and then using whatever tools you have in your back pocket to erect new buildings and other facilities.

Thankfully, WW2 Rebuilder isn’t just about shoveling dirt and carrying out the same monotonous tasks time and time again; it’s also about completing a mixture of side jobs to help soften the post-war wounds. Take the opening portions of the campaign, for instance. Initially, you are required to clean debris from a set of train tracks. However, the more you begin to explore the map and uncover new areas, the more you begin to discover side missions, like defusing old bombs, for example. And, in a traditional rags-to-riches fashion, the more side jobs you complete, the more likely you are to earn better perks for your tools, as well as other incentives to improve your overall performance for future exploits.

Calm After the Storm

As it turns out, WW2 Rebuilder doesn’t pose any real threat against you, nor does it generate any hazardous areas for you to navigate, for that matter. True enough, it does feature the occasional hurdle (see previous point regarding armed bombs), but given that these are often made to feel optional and not necessary for the sake of fulfilling the agenda, the game is, to some degree, as forgiving as you want it to be. Say, if you would rather spend your work week siphoning off clutter from a disused warehouse than going out of your way to search for hidden opportunities around the world, then you can do that. With that said, I did find that the best experiences were often the ones that I mistakenly stumbled across than those that were readily available at the beginning of each chapter.

To say that WW2 Rebuilder is a slow burner wouldn’t be all that far from the truth. As with any renovation sim that requires the patience of a saint and the green thumbs of a pedigree-level architect, it is a matter of being able to tailor your experience in a way that will ease the burden of your work and allow you the chance to actually enjoy what it is that you’re doing. And, there truly are some great rewards to this career, including small but noticeable tool upgrades and other inventory items for you to consider in the later stages of the relatively sizable campaign. Granted, these perks might not always be worth writing home about, but for those who idolize small milestones and, more importantly, those who take great pride in surpassing them in exchange for a small reward, it might be deemed a worthwhile investment.

Even in the Rubble

While it’s certainly no secret that business simulation and building-centric sandbox games often struggle to capture picture-perfect depictions of real-life cities, WW2 Rebuilder does actually come through with some surprisingly great visuals. There’s a good sense of realism to the world, which is fitting, given the seriousness of the time period and what have you. It helps, too, that the game doesn’t lose itself in a sea of technical or graphical glitches, or even anything of a mechanical level, for that matter. Mind you, I can’t say that I was forever traipsing the world while actively searching for errors to poke holes in; I was far too busy mopping up the side quests and enjoying the experience…as daunting as it often may have been.

Verdict

If you can gloss over the historical context of the game and make peace with its rather daunting atmosphere, then you might come to find a pleasantly satisfying gameplay loop stitched into the framework of what is a surprisingly great simulation game. It helps, in ways, that the game isn’t so much of a bleak experience as it is a love letter to conservation and the art of remediating old wounds. Is it a joyous game? Not even slightly, no. But is it a fun game? Absolutely, and I’m honestly inclined to believe that it’s one of the more rewarding building simulation games, too. Sure, its gameplay loop is all rather simple, and its building block process is nothing short of predictable, but with a solid collection of side activities to onboard and a surprisingly decent set of tools to work with, it quickly becomes a worthwhile endeavor.

To echo what I mentioned earlier, WW2 Rebuilder is, despite being a little more serious than the vast majority of alternate construction simulation games, a souped-up version of House Flipper with a war-torn twist. Depressing, though not as bad as it could have been, given its infatuation with its chosen time period. And so, while you could quite easily argue that this is a journey of post-traumatic woes, you could also argue that it depicts the beginning of a new and fruitful era—the calm after the storm, or the silver lining that emerges from the ashes of a harrowing past, if you will. If that’s the sort of thing you wouldn’t mind getting out of bed for, then allow me to pass you the shovel — a new world awaits from beyond the rubble.