Before We Leave, the cosy city-building game from New Zealand-based developers Balancing Monkey Games, is set to launch on Nintendo Switch on 2 August 2022. Between the game’s cosy vibes and its management elements, it feels like a perfect fit for the console.
In Before We Leave, you play as the benevolent ruler of a new civilisation, making decisions that will help your people thrive and grow. You can gather resources by placing land titles, manage each of your settlements, and help to expand your population on an emerging planet.
Along the way, you won’t have to deal with any outright conflict – this is a non-violent, peaceful game – but you will need to grapple with a number of challenges and make decisions that may change the course of your people’s history.
Read: Balancing Monkey Games is trying to make the world a better place
You’ll essentially start from scratch, helping to guide your people to greater heights by introducing them to farming and other essential activities. There’s technology to research, and a perfect balance to be struck between caring for the natural environment, and growing your new home.
Before We Leave takes a lot of cues from classic civilisation sims, but with a slower pace and a focus on building over ‘conquering’, it also charts a calmer course as a warm and wholesome experience.
‘When you care about something so strongly, and it informs so much of who you are as a person, those beliefs are just going to come to whatever you’re making quite naturally,’ Emily Latta, Balancing Monkey Games’ Community Manager recently told GamesHub of the environmental values in the game.
‘We have such a big platform now – Before We Leave has performed amazingly well. Since we have that platform, we should probably be saying something and trying to do some good with it, right?’
That good will spread to
