In our Cataclismo preview earlier this month, we raved about the survival RTS’s exact base-building toolset, which let our inner Lego kids enjoy delicately piecing together walls, battlements, and murder holes. In fact, the building is so satisfying that the lack of a sandbox mode was one of the few sticking points. The good news: Cataclismo no longer lacks anything.
Today, Cataclismo received its first patch since its Early Access release, adding the highly anticipated Sandbox mode. In it, you’ll have unlimited resources to work with, allowing you to build without limits, whether you’re exploring strategic spaces or simply honing your sense of castle aesthetics. It’s an vital skill: no self-respecting castellan just throws battlements where they fit. Imagine that! A battlement that’s not properly placed! I can already hear the courtiers sniggering.
While it’s nice to have Cataclismo’s building toolset to play around with freely, it’s an addition that will provide some utility in non-sandbox modes. Cataclismo lets you save plans, meaning that if you create a substructure or defensive feature that you find particularly useful, you can save it as a template to quickly implement later without having to re-place individual pieces. In Sandbox mode, you can design and save recent plans without having to deal with the resource constraints and besieging hazy nightmares of other game modes.
And of course, you can let it go on a wild siege to see how well the defenders of your carefully carved fortress are doing. Or you can just put a bunch of soldiers on your pristine, pristine architecture and, you know, just look at them. I’d probably do that a lot. Those are real video games, to me.
To celebrate the addition of the sandbox mode, Cataclismo creator Digital Sun is hosting an in-house Fort Lord building contest. Discord. The devs will apparently be evaluating unit placement, strategic considerations, and most importantly, “aesthetics and omnipotence.” See? I told you about battlement placement.
Cataclismo is available in Early Access on Couple.
