Screenshots & trailers
What players say
Why the number is what it is: aspect mentions counted across 299 sampled Steam reviews (274 positive / 25 negative), recent and most-helpful. Plain keyword counting, fully reproducible; nothing here is written by a machine.
What positive reviews talk about
- Difficulty & balance7% mention it
What negative reviews complain about
- Story & writing12% mention it
- Progression & loot12% mention it
- Controls & UI12% mention it
Satisfaction by hours played
Same score, different games: see how sentiment holds up the longer people play.
Under 5h
77%
26 reviews
5-15h
80%
44 reviews
15-40h
90%
60 reviews
40-100h
97%
66 reviews
100h+
98%
103 reviews
Review sentiment over time
Weekly positive-review rate (green) and review volume (bars). Dashed lines mark significant patches; the amber line is the start of the current scoring window. Hover the dots to see what drove a dip or a jump.
How this score was computed
The VGC Score is a weighted blend on a press-comparable 0-100 quality scale. Steam approval rates are first calibrated (95% positive on Steam ≈ 89.5 quality, since Steam approval skews high). Press and tracked creator reviews each count ~2x a player review and share one cap against player evidence (creator buy/skip calls pool into an approval rate, calibrated like Steam approval); all-time sentiment is capped and halved (it's context, not verdict); reviews of the current build carry the most weight when a fresh patch anchors the window; and a 'typical game' prior keeps small samples from pegging the scale. Because press reviews and Metacritic user aggregates describe the launch build, their weight decays as the game ages (3-year half-life after a 1-year grace). That's how a game that launched rough can outgrow its old reception once updates win players over. Reviews under 2h playtime (the refund window), non-Steam activations, and free copies are downweighted.
| Component | Positive | Quality (0-100) | Weight (pseudo-reviews) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Press reviews (OpenCritic) | – | 74 | 6 |
| All-time Steam reviews | 90% | 84 | 1000 |
| Metacritic user ratings | – | 85 | 27 |
| Post-patch Steam reviews (trust-weighted) | 96% | 92 | 28 |
| Calibration prior (typical game) | – | 72 | 50 |
Scoring window: last 30 days (no significant patch detected) · 79 reviews sampled · 73 total reviews in window · weighted 68.4 up / 2.5 down · computed 2h ago · full methodology →
Press & Creators reviews (39)
Individual verdicts from outlets we track: scored reviews first, most trusted outlets first among them. The small badge is each outlet's trust score: how well its scoring history aligns with players.
- 80
“Banished is a great example of an excellent game created without massive resources. Shining Rock Studios combined well-known solutions with new ideas that generate hours of interesting and very demanding gameplay set in a likeable world. Creating and expanding your own settlement provide tons of fun, and giving food and shelter to your subjects is extremely satisfying. Banished is one of the nicest surprises of the year so far.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“A solid city builder that will appeal to most fans of the genre even if it's currently lacking in features and scope.”
read full review ↗ - 60
“If you put the lack of missions aside as a consequence of the budget price tag, Banished is still a flawed game. There's brilliant concepts and a core that shines, but a troublesome interface and a general lack of breadth of content is clearly an issue. ”
read full review ↗ - 70
“Life on the frontier wasn't pretty and neither is Banished, but it does provide an interesting city-building simulation with an excellently designed user interface.”
read full review ↗ - 60
“I liked playing Banished. It was complex, but never fiddly, difficult, but rarely cruel, though it would benefit from a little more transparency. But as soon as I had a handle on it, as soon as I'd started to see through some of the fog of its complexity, I wanted to grasp for something bigger, something greater. Banished is satisfying, but never spectacular. That's not quite enough for me.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“Banished reinforces the human drama with its brutal difficulty and negative feedback loops. It's fertile soil for some of the most remarkable emergent storytelling around.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“A nice change of pace for city-builders, but it loses momentum once the immediate urgency of survival goes away.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“Was worth the ~$10 I paid for it, but I'm a big resource management nerd. You have to like the genre, like challenge, and even then, you'll only get so many hours out of this thing.”
read full review ↗ - 60
“An interesting twist on the concept of a tycoon game that falls short of its ambition. [Issue #240]”
- 20
“What really kills Banished for me is the overwhelming sense of pointlessness. There are no goals, no scenarios, no unlockables, no longterm luxury goods or endgame wonders or upper level populations or advanced buildings. There is no finale. There is, instead, a world without end.”
read full review ↗ - 83
“As a pure city-building game, Banished is dazzling. It combines simple charms with transparent, complex systemic interactions, and a tough-but-fair difficulty curve.”
read full review ↗ - 100
GRYOnline.pl
PC Invasion
GameWatcher
The Escapist
Eurogamer
GameSpot
PC Gamer
The Game Fanatics
IGN
TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brit…and 27 more tracked reviews.
Patch history
- New Beta Build AvailableOct 31, 2015
- New Beta Build AvailableOct 31, 2015
- Banished 1.0.4 Now AvailableNov 4, 2014
- Banished 1.0.4 Now AvailableNov 4, 2014
- Banished 1.0.3Jun 20, 2014
- Banished 1.0.3Jun 20, 2014
- Laborer Update...May 31, 2014
- Laborer Update...May 31, 2014
- Version 1.0.2 Beta now available...Apr 30, 2014
- Version 1.0.2 Beta now available...Apr 30, 2014
- Working on update 1.0.1...Feb 27, 2014
- Working on update 1.0.1...Feb 27, 2014