Overview
One More Island is a colony-building strategy simulation from Berg Games, released in May 2022 for Windows, Nintendo Switch, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. You play as the Queen's appointed governor, tasked with turning scattered, resource-rich islands into a thriving colonial network. The core loop is tight: explore new territory, extract its resources, build production chains, and keep your colonists fed, housed, and happy enough to keep working. The tension between serving the Crown and building something for yourself runs through every session.
The game's world map generates dynamically from hand-crafted elements, meaning no two playthroughs produce the same geography. Island size, land fertility, and resource distribution are all adjustable before you start, so the difficulty scales to what you want from a given session. That flexibility makes One More Island accessible to players new to the colony-builder genre while still offering enough complexity to satisfy veterans of Anno or Tropico.
Gameplay and mechanics: how does the colony-building loop work?
One More Island's production chain system is where the game earns its depth. Resources don't just sit in a stockpile waiting to be spent. They feed into workshops, which feed into higher-tier goods, which unlock new civilization tiers and new demands from your colonists. Managing that flow without bottlenecking is the central puzzle.
Key mechanics include:
- Freeform building placement with path optimization
- Multi-island trade routes linking resource networks
- Colonist happiness affecting production speed
- A civilization tier research system
- Royal tax obligations with independence as a defiant alternative
The freeform building designer gives you real control over workshop placement and colonist movement paths, which matters more than it sounds. Poorly planned colonies start to choke on their own inefficiency as population grows, and untangling that is both frustrating and genuinely satisfying.
What happens when you stop obeying the Queen?
This is where One More Island separates itself from more passive city-builders. The Crown expects taxes, and meeting those obligations earns goodwill at the royal court. But the game offers a harder, more interesting path: withhold taxes, build enough self-sufficiency across your island network, and eventually declare independence. It's a full-session goal that reframes every production decision as either tribute or preparation for rebellion.
That political layer adds stakes to the simulation that pure city-builders often lack. Choosing to defy the monarch isn't just a narrative beat. It requires your colonies to be genuinely independent of Old World supply chains, which means the research tree and inter-island trade routes become tools of liberation rather than just efficiency upgrades.
Content and replayability
The procedurally generated world map means repeat playthroughs feel distinct without being random. Berg Games built the generation system around hand-crafted map elements, so the layouts feel designed rather than algorithmically dumped. Combined with the adjustable difficulty settings and the branching loyalty-versus-independence progression, there's enough variation to justify multiple runs.
Conclusion
One More Island delivers a focused, replayable colony-building strategy experience built around production chain management, multi-island expansion, and a genuinely interesting political tension between colonial obedience and self-determination. Berg Games kept the scope tight enough that the systems feel purposeful rather than bloated. For players who enjoy resource management and city-building games with a clear sense of progression and consequence, it makes a strong case for one more run.