Colony Ship is a post Earth role playing game from Iron Tower Studios, released in 2023, with its most recent update in April 2025. I played it on Steam, and my first completionist style run took about 60 hours. Across multiple playthroughs and restarts, I now have around 502 hours in the game and 31 out of 70 achievements. Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit and would rate it around 7.5 out of 10.
For the price I paid, which I believe was around $10, Colony Ship has been an excellent value. Getting more than 500 hours out of it is hard to complain about. I played on Hero difficulty and did not try the Underdog mode, so my review is based on that experience.
The basic premise is that you are living aboard a massive colony ship traveling toward Alpha Centauri, generations after it first launched and possibly generations before it ever arrives. I do not want to spoil the larger story, but the setting is one of the strongest parts of the game. It captures the feeling of being trapped inside a decaying, divided, desperate society drifting through space. If you enjoyed the atmosphere of movies like Pandorum or Event Horizon, there is a good chance this setting will appeal to you.
The writing is fantastic. The game does not have full voice acting, which is unfortunate, but the text is strong enough that I did not mind reading through it. I normally do not enjoy very text heavy games, and I usually prefer fantasy over science fiction, but Colony Ship managed to pull me in. The dialogue, descriptions, setting, and artwork all work together to make the world feel believable and lived in.
Character creation and progression are also major strengths. The game gives you core stats, skills, and feats that shape your build from the beginning. Your core stats are mostly fixed after creation, but bionic implants can provide bonuses, and those implants can later be upgraded. This gives the player a lot of room to experiment with different builds. You gain a feat every level, and the combination of stats, skills, feats, gear, and implants gives the game strong replay value.
The companion system is solid, though not amazing. In the first act, you can recruit three main companions, and later acts add more faction based and mutant related options. Personally, I mostly stuck with the original companions from the first act. I did not find the later companions as compelling, and even the early companions are somewhat limited in terms of dialogue and personality. Still, they provide useful skills and tactical options, which makes them valuable during combat and exploration.
The level design, map layout, and art direction complement each other well. Exploration generally feels rewarding, and the different areas of the ship are interesting to discover. There are secrets, alternate paths, and optional areas that make the world worth investigating. The ship has a strong sense of place, and the environments help reinforce the game’s atmosphere.
That said, the quest design can be frustrating, especially on a first playthrough. Some quests are fairly simple, such as fetching an item or speaking to a specific person. Others carry across multiple acts, and the game does not always make it clear when certain objectives need to be completed. Quest descriptions are sometimes vague, giving you only a name or a broad objective without enough direction. On my first run, I spent hours wandering around trying to figure out what I had missed or what I was supposed to do next. This became much less of a problem on later playthroughs, but it was one of the more frustrating parts of my initial experience.
Combat and difficulty were mostly manageable on Hero difficulty. I did not have much trouble with most fights, but stealth was a major exception. In my opinion, stealth is one of the weakest parts of the game. Even if you invest in the right skills and feats, stealth sections often feel like they require you to move in the exact order the designers intended. It does not feel flexible or rewarding. It feels restrictive and trial based. Because of that, I do not recommend building heavily around stealth unless you already know the game well and specifically want that kind of challenge.
The audio is very well done. The soundtrack, ambient sound, and effects all help build the atmosphere. Each area has a strong mood, and the music supports the feeling of being inside a worn down colony ship full of competing factions, old technology, and social decay.
Technically, my experience was mostly stable. I did not encounter any game crashing bugs. I saw some minor glitches, such as Jed falling through a floor, visual item glitches, and graphical issues when transferring between areas. I also had one possible save related issue, but after restarting my computer, it seemed to resolve itself. Nothing was game breaking. I did have a better experience running the game in windowed mode rather than full screen, but I am also using an older machine with dual GTX 1080 graphics cards and an older processor. Given the game’s modest requirements, I do not think most players will have serious performance problems.
Replay value is one of Colony Ship’s biggest strengths. Between different builds, faction choices, combat approaches, companions, quest outcomes, and achievements, there is a lot of reason to replay it. The game is not perfect, and some systems are rough around the edges, but it kept me coming back for hundreds of hours.
Overall, I recommend Colony Ship to fans of isometric role playing games, especially players who enjoy deep character building, tactical combat, strong writing, and dark science fiction settings. It has some frustrating quest design and weak stealth mechanics, but the world, atmosphere, writing, customization, and replay value make it a worthwhile experience. For me, it is a solid 7.5 out of 10.
