With a large library of reputable and catastrophically-game-changing mods, and also vanilla features such as mountain intensity and biomes, there are nearly endless varieties of settings and strategies to keep you coming back for more. The gameplay is strategic and conceptually sound, based off of your ability to predict logistical and external threats. So much of this game's appeal comes from these unique, unexpected events intertwined with the more predictable cycle of growth, suffering, and loss. Maybe someday you'll pull up to a bandit camp, and you'll capture some dude with good stats who OD'd instead of fighting your super soldiers to the death - and it turns out he's the pirate faction leader? All this happened, and this is tame compared to other players' stories.) Colonists will interact with each other constantly, and you'll grow to love and hate their unique traits and relationships during their years-long struggle to survive on some backwater planet. Your pet rat Gilbert will dig into your stash and die of a drug overdose. (Surgeons will cut off one leg while trying to put a peg leg on the other one. You can control so many elements of the world, and yet spontaneous, crazy things will happen despite your best efforts.

It's possible to play the game entirely at your own pace, anywhere from save-scumming an intimate, perfect colony to blazing past lots of failed playthroughs. What's so beautiful about RimWorld is that it's a blank canvas for just about anything, not just the darkest depths of your psyche but also your brightest moments of creativity and ingenuity. You are at once powerless and all-powerful, the meat and the butcher, the supernatural force in every colonist's mind and yet a mere player in the grand scheme of things.

You'll find that your sense of morality is no match for your desperation, or your sadism. It's possible - among so many other things - to raze tribal villages in search of the Holy Grail, butcher all of the victims, and then do 'funny things' with their flesh. The Sky will refuse to send rain for two weeks just to spite you with this mess, or maybe on a whim it will cut off your power and send a swarm of killing machines your way. Your outdoor corridors and alleyways will end up caked with blood, driving your people mad. Fingers will get mashed, guts will come loose, and heads will roll. Crowds of people will get mowed down by nukes and machine-gun fire. So you know all of those Geneva Convention and human hat jokes? That's no exaggeration: RimWorld is a thoroughly visceral, violent, and intense game where you would least expect it.

Rimworld traits