Banished begins with a group of exiled travelers arriving in a new land with little more than their clothing and a cart of supplies. This single-player city-building strategy game makes the townspeople themselves the central resource: they grow older, work, raise families, and eventually die. Building homes is only part of the challenge; a settlement also needs enough people to sustain its future.
Its design avoids skill trees and money. Structures become available whenever residents have gathered the required resources, while trade vessels let players barter supplies for livestock and annual crops. Those distant routes can also bring illness, so trading offers both opportunity and risk. Residents can take on varied work, from farming and hunting to teaching and healing, connecting the town’s daily needs to its long-term resilience.
Each map can make resources more or less scarce, and choices such as replanting forests, mining iron, or quarrying rock require land that could otherwise support expansion. That makes Banished a game of balancing population, space, supplies, and health rather than following one guaranteed strategy.
