Dungeon Settlers Review: Is Early Access Worth It?

Quick answer: Dungeon Settlers launched to a Very Positive Steam rating — 170 of 199 reviews positive, 85% — and the colony-building half is what people praise. Buy it for that. The reservations are real though: combat feel is divisive, the developer says optimisation has barely been done, and the second region is a difficulty cliff that can wipe a fully equipped party.

Where the numbers stand

At the time of writing, one day after the Early Access launch on September 4, 2026:

Two of those numbers move daily. Review counts climb, and the launch discount has an expiry date, so treat both as a snapshot rather than a current figure.

Press coverage is thin but real: InsertCoins.press scored it 8/10, Rock Paper Shotgun described it as a balance of RimWorld-style colony sim and Baldur's Gate-ish party combat, and Korean outlet Inven Global ran a full review in August 2026.

What people like

The colony layer is the consistent praise. Building the settlement, laying out rooms, chasing room quality for the crafting and research bonuses, working out which settler should be doing what — that half of the game reads as complete and satisfying to most reviewers.

The two halves also genuinely feed each other, which is the design's strongest idea: materials come out of the dungeon and become buildings and gear, and those buildings and gear decide how deep you can survive next time. It is a loop rather than two games stapled together.

What people do not like

The criticisms cluster, and they cluster around combat:

• "Building the Colony Is Great… Fighting, Not So Much" and "Combat doesn't click" are both active Steam discussion threads. If you are buying primarily for tactical combat, that is the risk.
• Arrows are expensive early, to the point that players complain about using them at all.
• There is no way to read an enemy's strength before engaging, which makes some deaths feel arbitrary rather than earned in a game where deaths are permanent.

The three things the review scores do not tell you

Optimisation is admittedly untouched. The official roadmap states in plain language that optimisation has barely been done yet, and lists launch crashes on some machines as a known issue. That is unusually honest, and it is a genuine reason to wait if your hardware is marginal.

The second region is a cliff, not a slope. A party that cleared the first region's boss with full gear entered the Festering Burrow and was wiped by a Gloth pack, losing two settlers permanently. The player's own summary — that he did not expect the second dungeon to be that much tougher — is the most useful sentence in any review of this game. The first region teaches you a difficulty curve that the second region does not honour.

Food pressure never lets up. Low food stockpile events recur throughout the early game. It is a design pressure rather than a bug, but it means the colony half is not a relaxing builder — it is a supply problem with a dungeon attached.

Who should buy it now

Buy now if: you like colony sims, you are comfortable with permanent death, and a two-year Early Access plan reads as a feature rather than a warning. The roadmap is public and detailed, and the developer answers questions directly.

Wait if: you want the combat to be the reason you play, your machine is borderline, or you want mods — mod support is an Update 5 item with no announced date.

Do not expect multiplayer at all. The developer has ruled it out, including long term. If you were hoping to play this with a friend, that answer is not going to change in this game.

FAQ

See also: how it compares with RimWorld, the full roadmap, and platform support.