RimWorld - Odyssey expands the core strategy simulation experience of RimWorld, blending indie creativity with deep colony management on a procedurally generated planet. In this PC-exclusive DLC, you take control of a group of survivors who build and customize a gravship to explore diverse biomes, raid ancient structures, and even venture into orbit, all while fending off threats like mechanoids and mutated wildlife.
Gameplay
The core loop revolves around constructing and upgrading your gravship, starting from a basic setup with a grav engine and minimal rooms powered by chemfuel. As you progress, you collect rare gravcores from hazardous sites like insect-infested caves or trapped reactors to expand the ship into a mobile colony complete with labs, workshops, and living quarters.
Exploration plays a central role, with new biomes offering unique challenges and resources. In glowforests, you rely on fungi for survival amid bioluminescent mushrooms and geothermal vents. Scarlands feature toxic rain and mechanoid patrols in war-torn ruins, while grasslands provide fertile land prone to droughts and brushfires. Glacial plains demand ice shelters against blizzards and prehistoric beasts, and lava fields require barriers to divert molten flows and masks to combat ash.
Orbital ventures add another layer, where you fly into space to scavenge collapsed platforms, asteroids, and satellites. Building airtight walls, heaters, oxygen pumps, and airlocks becomes essential to protect against vacuum, and colonists need vac suits for extravehicular activities. New wildlife includes over 40 tamable animals like scimitar cats, great wolves, seals, and even sentient-enhanced creatures that assist in foraging, hunting, or comforting colonists.
Quests drive narrative progression, from tracking mythical alpha thrumbos for their horns to raiding mercenary crypts or competing with scavengers in orbit. Combat involves new weapons such as sawed-off shotguns, AI-assisted rifles, and gear to counter threats like hunter drones, wasp drones, cyclops mechanoids, and the overarching machine hive mind that spawns endless attackers.
Game Modes
RimWorld - Odyssey integrates seamlessly into the base game's single-player scenarios, enhancing them with travel and exploration mechanics without introducing entirely new modes. You can start with classic setups like Crashlanded, where survivors begin with basic gear after a shipwreck, now augmented by the ability to build a gravship early on for planetary mobility.
Other starting points, such as Naked Brutality, challenge you to survive with a single colonist and no items, but Odyssey's additions like taming intelligent wildlife or scavenging orbital debris provide fresh strategies to overcome isolation. The expansion emphasizes a nomadic playstyle, allowing you to relocate your colony via ship, raid distant landmarks, or establish outposts in varied terrains like cliffs, islands, or abandoned buildings.
Difficulty settings range from peaceful builder modes to extreme challenges like 500% threat scale, where mechanoid hives and environmental hazards test your preparations. While primarily solo, the game's procedural storytelling creates replayable campaigns focused on survival, expansion, and confronting the mechhive's ultimate threat.
New Features and Mechanics
Beyond shipbuilding, Odyssey introduces a landmarks system that generates diverse landscapes, from chasms and valleys for defensive underground colonies to coastal villages on archipelagos. Fishing mechanics let you catch species like tuna or marlin, adding to resource management.
Factions expand with orbital scavengers and ancient mechanoid defenses, while the machine hive mind serves as a persistent antagonist. You can choose to destroy it or seize control, altering late-game dynamics. New traps, enemies, and a soundtrack album by Alistair Lindsay enrich the atmosphere.
Is It Worth Playing?
For fans of strategy simulations who enjoy deep customization and emergent storytelling, RimWorld - Odyssey offers substantial value by opening up the planet and orbit for exploration. It builds on the base game's strengths with meaningful additions like gravship travel and new biomes, making colonies feel more dynamic and connected to the world.
Player reception has been mixed in recent reviews, with some highlighting bugs or balance issues post-launch, but overall, it's praised as a solid expansion that refreshes gameplay. If you thrive on managing resources, taming wildlife, and tackling procedural challenges in a sci-fi setting, this DLC extends playtime significantly. Those new to RimWorld might start with the base game first, but veterans will find it a worthwhile addition to push their strategies further.
