There are few games that let you kick back, relax and unwind as well as the original Islanders.

If you’ve never played it, essentially you play a grand overseer, placing buildings down on barren land, finding the perfect placement to maximise your score, all so you can eventually move onto the next island and do the same over again. Listening to some relaxing lo-fi tunes along the way.

It’s a premise that’s so simple, but incredibly effective if you just want to mindlessly tap at your screen or click at something while watching TV.

So when it was announced there would be a sequel, I have to be honest, reader, I was a little skeptical. How do you take a formula like this and do enough to justify an all-new game rather than just load it up with DLC packs. The good news is, I was wrong!

Islanders: New Shores still manages to be this relaxing, chill, easy-going game, but there’s a bit more going on to gameify the experience a little bit. I guess you could say, it’s less of an interactive toy like the original Islanders and is now more of a light, passive gaming experience to play in-between bouts of….whatever’s in your rotation.

The core principles remain. You place a building, find the sweet spot to increase your score, while also being careful not to place certain buildings next to the other in order to reduce your score. Then you can move onto another building pack and another until you’ve done enough to ‘complete’ the island.

But there’s some immediate differences in this as well. For one, the ‘completion circle’ in the bottom right of the screen is bigger now. It’s a lot trickier to actually progress onto another island, but to off-set that somewhat, you can earn ‘boons’ which essentially add unique multipliers or benefits to your run in order to increase score or make things a bit easier for you!

You can also take a look at the value of each building at a glance now to see how much their base score is and so this gives you a better idea of what you should be striving for when multiplying.

The game also feels a lot more slick now, with a more expanded UI that still feels very clean, and fortunately it’s still not too cluttered or busy, so it never feels overwhelming. That would defeat the entire point of the game, really.

The main experience remains High Score as you traverse 20 islands, but there’s also a Sandbox mode where you can essentially build to your hearts content without restrictions. Very much a nice to have.

Interestingly, the sequel follows some of the later updates Islanders received. For instance, you can undo building placement as well as experiment with different building types and layouts. As you move between islands and get a ‘fresh canvas’ you also unlock new building types. But the interesting thing Islanders: New Shores also offers is the ability to choose which canvas you want to go with for the next island.

There’s fantasy-themed designs, desert-like environments, some more neutral, it all plays towards your tastes and the music that hums along in the background works in harmony with that. Ever the present calming presence that sometimes even made me want to take a little nap. Very therapeutic.

Building packs all have different property types. For instance, a ‘Seaweed Farm Pack’ will provide buildings better placed closer to water, whereas City Packs would naturally get more points further in-land.

You’ll also need to think about placing certain buildings near trees, on sand, at the highest peaks or even on seperate, smaller islands you can see off in the distance. Something I weirdly found in this version of Islanders is, compared to the original, I was quickly becoming very cramped on my islands. Packs were almost forcing me to use small areas to maximise my scoring based on the way the lands are formed. Some of that is definitely on me and my placement, but after five or six runs of encountering the same issue, it definitely started to feel less of a coincidence.

A couple of other new things to note here – there’s now an in-built photo mode so you can snap your beautiful islands and share them online. Lovely features include changing time of day, adding a filter, depth of field and even little lanterns to brighten things up. It’s a sweet touch and a really lovely way to compare your creations.

And you can rotate the buildings as well, to make sure they’re facing in the correct direction and are aligning with other buildings or remain in proximity to one another.  Also, when you do transition between islands, your score is broken down and overviewed so you can see how you did at a glance and what were your best results. It’s smart and keeps you thinking about how to play the game over the long term.

The long and short of it is, this is still very much the core Islanders experience, but there’s some nice little tweaks in here to freshen up the formula and keep it interesting. Best of all, the game has an extensive roadmap for the future, so it’s a game I can comfortably keep jumping back into and enjoying for a long time to come. Honestly, that for me is the biggest news to celebrate. This was always a comfort food game but I did fatigue a bit eventually because the game wasn’t offering anything new.

It seems like New Shores is going to address that problem head on and I’m here for it!

Verdict

Islanders: New Shores takes everything that was good about the first game and smartly builds upon it so that it’s never too overwhelming or doesn’t become tedious or frustrating. The same zen, relaxing vibe that was present before is still very active here but slightly more gameified to add longevity and extended interest. All with the added promise of an extended roadmap. If you loved the first, you’ll adore this. And if you need something extra and chill to break up your patterns, this is a perfect palette cleanser.

Pros

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Islanders: New Shores is out now on PC, PS, Switch, and Xbox

Played on Nintendo Switch

Code kindly provided by Coatsink for review purposes