Bastide

About

Bastide is a single player casual strategy game. It was developed by MedievalNexus and was released on February 26, 2020. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

"Bastide is an Early Access, single-player strategy game set in the 13th century, built with Unreal Engine 5 and offering 23+ hours of playtime. Construct and manage a village to survive against threats, assign peasants to jobs, gather resources, and expand into a fortified town across procedurally generated maps. Future updates include mods, exploration, and trading with neighbors."

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

+11

Skip User Reviews

76%

Audience ScoreBased on 142 reviews

graphics7 positive mentions

grinding6 negative mentions

Bastide shows potential as a medieval city-builder with realistic elements like seasons and weather impacting gameplay.
The developer is active in updating the game regularly and is responsive to community feedback, which is encouraging for future improvements.
The game offers a unique non-grid building placement system and allows for a mix of chill and challenging gameplay, appealing to fans of the genre.

The game is still in early access and feels unfinished, with many bugs, missing features, and a lack of a proper tutorial, making it difficult for new players to understand the mechanics.
Progression is slow, even on the highest speed settings, leading to a tedious gameplay experience where players may feel overwhelmed by resource management and population issues.
The graphics and interface are often criticized for being unpolished and confusing, detracting from the overall immersion and enjoyment of the game.

graphics
20 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
35%
50%
15%
The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with some players appreciating the aesthetic and potential, while others criticize them as outdated and lacking depth. Many note technical issues, such as characters levitating and livestock glitches, which detract from the overall experience. Overall, the visuals are seen as a work in progress, with some players finding them enjoyable and others deeming them amateurish and reminiscent of older titles.
- “It is a fun game overall with nice graphics and realistic gameplay.”
- “Whilst the game is beautifully crafted with some awesome graphics, sounds and designs, there is a severe lack of a tutorial leading players to have to try and figure out what to do for themselves.”
- “Otherwise a good initial start, keep up the good work, I like the graphic aesthetics and seasons.”
- “I don't like the graphics; it looks like a 2010 game and lacks 3D models.”
- “Even with max graphics, it's really a crudely made game, with a very amateur freeware-style feel to it, as if someone who doesn't really know game development published the result anyway.”
- “Graphically, it lacks depth and 3D models that would match each other.”
gameplay
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22%
61%
17%
The gameplay of Bastide is characterized by its realistic elements, such as seasons and weather, which significantly influence player experience. However, it suffers from generic mechanics reminiscent of other city-builders, leading to a lack of depth and engagement, particularly in farming and pasturage. While the game shows potential for improvement with future updates, many players find it currently lacking in variety and functionality, suggesting a wait for further development before fully diving in.
- “Bastide aims for a realistic vibe, with mechanics like seasons and weather actually impacting your gameplay.”
- “Bastide definitely shows promise as a medieval city-builder with realistic elements like seasons, weather, and survival mechanics.”
- “It is a fun game overall with nice graphics and realistic gameplay.”
- “But under the hood, there are generic mechanics from banished-like games, plaguing literally every single one: manually set working areas, working radius around buildings, manual work recruiting.”
- “Even the video of the gameplay is bad, as it creates a sense of a much more functional game that flows nicely, but really just cuts away the endless periods of time of nothingness between every small thing that happens.”
- “Currently, it's more like a rip-off of Banished and Forest Village (when it comes to the game's mechanics) but far worse and boring in many ways.”
optimization
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
30%
40%
30%
Overall, the game's optimization has seen some improvements, alleviating previous issues like overheating GPUs; however, significant performance problems persist, especially with higher populations, making it unplayable for many users on mid-range hardware. Players express hope for further optimizations as the game is still in early access, but current performance issues remain a major concern.
- “Last year the game caused my GPU to run extremely hot, but there have been improvements regarding optimization, and the GPU no longer gets hot.”
- “Being in early access, there will no doubt be more optimizations done in the future.”
- “The fact that the developer is diligent about the update schedule is indicative of the quality of performance at this stage.”
- “By the end of development, you're probably going to need a pretty high-end machine to run it in late game stages and with reasonable high populations without significant issues with game performance.”
- “Us normal folks absolutely cannot play this game; you need to optimize it, performance is terrible on a 2060.”
- “Once I reached a total population of 90-100 people, I noticed the game would get very laggy and occasionally freeze for brief periods of time.”
grinding
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game tedious and lacking depth, with farming mechanics described as simplistic and unengaging. The ease of survival diminishes the challenge, leading to a lack of motivation to continue playing, especially when compared to more compelling settlement management games like "Dawn of Man" and "Banished." Overall, the grinding feels uninspired and fails to provide a rewarding experience.
- “Right now it's just plain tedious.”
- “Unfortunately, at present, this game has no hook - all the pieces of a settlement management game are there (farming, logging, housing, other food production, etc.) but there's no compelling reason to keep playing - you can't really fail beyond losing all your initial settlers and in that case, there isn't really anything you can do about that.”
- “Meanwhile, here, basically you just exist - as long as you keep a tiny fraction of your population engaged in farming, you'll have enough food all the time, no problem.”
stability
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users report significant stability issues, including lag and freezing when the population exceeds 100-150, even on high-end PCs. Additionally, technical glitches such as flickering graphics for livestock in pastures further detract from the overall experience.
- “Game lags and freezes with more than 100-150 population (PC specs: CPU i9, 32GB RAM, RTX 2070).”
- “It will take a few minutes to learn the basics of the game, so use the first game to learn until everybody freezes, starves, or the enemy kills your population.”
- “Technical glitches: graphics and livestock blink on and off inside pastures.”
music
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The music in the game is generally well-received, with users noting its quality and positive impact on the overall experience.
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users highlight the emotional aspect of the game by noting the immersive experience of characters seemingly defying gravity while maintaining a natural walking motion, which evokes a sense of wonder and connection to the game's world.