Stranded: Alien Dawn Review

May 2, 2023 Pendragon

With thanks to the folks at Haemimont Games and Frontier Foundry we’ve been taking a look through Stranded: Alien Dawn. This far-flung world-settling strategy has recently emerged from early access into full release, and we’re bringing you our full review and common-sense parent’s guide. As ever you can watch the video just below or keep reading for our extended written review.

If you’ve already picked up Stranded: Alien Dawn, you should also check out our Beginner’s Guide to this intricate management sim. This is populated with hints and tips straight from the developers, as well as our own.

Vital Statistics

Stranded: Alien Dawn is available now for PlayStation 4 and 5, PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. We’ve left our desktop behind (for a little while) and our review focuses on both X and S series for Xbox. It has a fairly small footprint (a little under 10GB) and at £30 the launch price won’t break the bank either.

The Basics – What is Stranded: Alien Dawn About?

In Stranded: Alien Dawn you’ll take on management of a small group of survivors. With three different game modes you’ll lead these survivors back home, achieve capitalist space glory, or tame the local alien wildlife as a new military outpost. You’ll choose to do this within either the dusty plains of Desertum or the lush green pastures and mountains of Sobrius. You can also select different moons to hang in the sky. Each of these will provide some slight gameplay tweaks to add a little extra challenge to your journey.

Haemimont Games have a great pedigree, with both Surviving Mars and Tropico titles under their belt. While the “settling an alien planet” concept might be similar to fans of their martian outing, Stranded really couldn’t be more different. Setting tasks will mean that your small group of workers auto-allocate themselves as they see fit. In addition to this, however, you can work to prioritise particular activities on a per-survivor basis (either using a simple allow or deny system as well as a five-point priority list for each individual).

Each survivor will have their own personality, which will affect their work and the others around them

You will also need to balance survivors’ rest time and working times to get the most out of them without forcing them to have a breakdown. When this happens (and not a million miles from the real world) workers will not achieve tasks, and will instead binge food, go on long walks or simply lie down and cry.

You can, of course, give each survivor direct orders to carry out tasks, if you want more direct control. When trouble is brewing, you’ll also need to “draft” survivors. This will temporarily enlist them into a defence force, which you’ll direct wherever needed to protect the settlement from alien invaders.

Is Stranded: Alien Dawn Safe for Children?

Rating: Some Concern.

Stranded: Alien Dawn is rated by PEGI at 16 and above and by the ESRB at a T for Teen. these ratings reference alcohol and tobacco use, as well as fantasy violence, blood and suggestive themes. Violence in the title stems from fairly regular attacks from alien life, as well as options to attack and butcher them proactively.

While this is a pretty normal occurrence in game, the blood effects aren’t hugely worrying for us here. There are some suggestive areas within the story, and your survivors will be able to live, laugh, love, as well as die on an alien planet. They can also drink alcohol and smoke plant leaves. There’s nothing hugely overt most of the time, and it’s one I’ve been happy to play in front of the micro bandits. While there is some concern, I’d definitely be tempted to dip under the age rating to let our older micro-bandits have a go.

Alien creatures are not always violent, but they’re not always pretty either

Is Stranded: Alien Dawn Accessible?

Rating: Low Barrier.

There is a lot to manage in Stranded, and there are a lot of different things to manage everall. However the title does come with plenty of options for difficulty as well as tweaks to your gameplay. At normal level, we found it to provide the right challenge for us, without being overwhelming. The tutorials also provide a nice learning curve to get you in game, and we’d definitely suggest hitting these before you get in game.

The Run Down – Our Five-Point Rating for Stranded: Alien Dawn

Gameplay – 4: It’s clear that Haemimont Games have learned from their work with Surviving Mars and the Tropico series. The different needs and actions are well balanced, and we’ve found that there’s always something to do without being too overwhelming (most of the time). While the team have done their best to streamline down to controllers, it is a little fiddly to find your way around at times which is a shame, but the management aspects are well balanced.I love the room creation modes rather than just plonking buildings down, and this helps to make some really unique settlements.

Visuals – 4: Overall visuals are pretty decent, especially when looking out into the night sky. Weather effects have been particularly well crafted, and animations are decent too. The level of zoom is pretty good, but when up close the pointer-style of the camera can make it a little fiddly to control. We’d also have really liked to have seen a photo or camera mode, which could really help you get some great shots of your camps, but it’s a good showing overall.

Selecting survivors carefully is one of our Beginner’s Guide top tips

Audio – 5:The various effects have been well implemented here, but I’ve really enjoyed the soundtrack. This brings a futuristic western country feel, which speaks to the pioneering spirit of the title quite well. It could have benefitted from voice acting, potentially, but the lack of voice acting didn’t really provide an impact for us and we’ve enjoyed the audio overall.

Narrative – 3:There is a kind of narrative as you work your way through exploring the various points of interest. This could have been more in depth, but in fairness it’s at the standard which we really expect from this kind of title.

Replay – 5: There are currently three different modes in Stranded. Firstly, survivors from an escape pod, secondly a trade mission and thirdly a military outpost build to take the local fauna. Each of these have different goals, objectives and focuses which change up your gameplay. In addition, the green and lush plains of the title are a far cry from the dusty and barren mars-like landscapes, and the two different areas to mean a different approach is needed. There’s also a good tech tree, and all of this together means there are a lot of different ways you can approach each mission.

The Verdict – Is Stranded: Alien Dawn Worth It?

Pixel Bandits Nuke the Site from Orbit Level for Stranded: Alien Dawn is a very respectable 8/10.

Another very strong showing from the folks at Haemimont Games. Stranded: Alien Dawn provides unique settlement building opportunities, and will reward careful planning. It’s just complex enough to keep things interesting, and the pace manages to provide a steady curve of expansion for your settlement. With a lot of things to do in game, and with a relatively low price point , it’s certainly worth grabbing if you’re a fan of sci-fi management sims.

As ever, to provide this review and common-sense parent’s guide, we received one free copy of Stranded: Alien Dawn from the folks at Frontier Foundry.

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