An underwater city-builder and colony sim

Aquatico is an underwater city-builder game in which you are given a set amount of space underwater. Your job is to build a thriving colony. There are no underwater threats or monsters. The driving force behind this colony sim is the survival of your inhabitants, who have very limited resources since they are underwater.

The game has passing similarities to Subnautica, particularly in how you can build in an underwater environment. However, these similarities quickly fade as you sink into the core gameplay loop, which is somewhat comparable to Cities Skylines and earlier Tropico games.

Build within underwater domes

As with most colony sim games, you start off with very basic technology and work your way up toward advanced buildings and technology. At first, the pacing is slow because balancing the colony growth and inhabitant survival is very one-sided. Keeping your colonists alive in the early game is very difficult.

Modeling workers after a Tropico game

In the Tropico games, you have a range of different workers who are of little use until trained or conscripted. Aquatico works in a similar way. Almost all of your inhabitants are useless near the beginning of the game, which poses several early-game challenges.

Needs a narrow focus

Those who long for another strategy game may find that Aquatico scratches their itch. However, its lack of focus may frustrate some people. It has Frostpunk levels of colony survival — until it doesn’t. It then becomes more of a Tropico game, and as you progress, it evens out into more of a City Skylines game.

Why bother being underwater?

When you consider the awe and wonder that came with playing the first Subnautica game, it is obvious that an underwater game theme has plenty of scope for wonder, horror, and majestic views. Sadly, this game exploits almost none of that, reaching the point where it may have well been a Mars colony-building sim.