I wanna point out that the monolith activating automatically into the first phase, only happens on the anomaly scenario. If you play any other sceneario, like crashlanded, you need to manually interact with the monolith.

I would agree that the most disappointing thing to me is the lack of inter-dlc content, they should have included a new xenotype and new genes, and I wish there were more memes, albeit two is not bad, but more would have been better. Also new psycasts and factions would have been good as well. Luckily I expect modders to step up and add all of these ideas soon.

Thanks for this overview, I'm still holding my money in my wallet because from the first announcement news I knew Anomaly would be a scripted DLC, as in you go through the same sequence or wou wouldn't interact with it at all. The horror theme also doesn't really appeal to me, but especially when horror is scripted it doesn't make sense. For now I don't think I see myself enjoying this, but if the other stuff turn out worthwile maybe I will in the future.

I would love a re-review at 3 months!

Bravo Ikono, brate. Sve si objasnio kratko, jasno i precizno. Svaka cast i samo nastavi :D

Anomaly as a dlc sucks. If we had orher content like I dont know reaching the godhood through worshipping different types of gods (angels,messengers,preventing apocalypse maybe,machine gods or maybe greek mythology etc) instead of just dark lovecraftian gods,interplay with other dlcs ,a more organic and dynamic world etc. This dlc do not give you a choice it is very straightforward,small and basically a custom scenerio mod. I have all dlcs but I am probably wont buy this one.

Good balanced review! Thanks for going enough into it and its various aspects to help me decide but without giving too much away.

Thanks for the warning, the few times i play rimworld i rather do peaceful settlement stuff, so i stay away from Anomaly. 🙂

IMO it's not Biotech-price-good. AFAIK, the monolith only auto-activates when you start the Anomaly scenario. If you choose the standard Crashlanded, or any of the other, the monolith stays dormant until you decide to activate it, which is good (at least the RW wiki does say so).

I can't wait for when all the mods update and someone tries making a super soldier using all of the DLC and a bunch of mods in a giant laboratory with every thing from genetics to mutagenics to viruses to robotics to anomalies to just everything. lol

for me they need to fix the event ratio of Anomalies.. like some of them should be in mission events (for example death pall), bcoz it will be a disaster while you dealing with mechnoid cluster suddenly a Renevant spawn in

Yay! Reviews from Icon! 😊

I consider this DLC to be exceptionally different to rimworld's usual progression and design philosophy thus far, and not only because it has little interaction with other DLCs. I think this was made apparent through the blog posts leading up to the release of the DLC, since they discussed at length how to introduce completely new themes into the game like cosmic and body horror. The DLC itself feels a lot more narrative focused than other content, as it's less about the story of your colony and more about discovering new aspects of the game's world. I think that the lack of interaction with other DLCs is not a deal-breaker, and if a lot more DLCs were to release later on I think it makes sense to let new players pick up various DLCs separate from the whole without having to sacrifice the content they would miss by not having all the DLCs that are compatible with each other. One of the biggest concerns for updates to rimworld recently have been to diversify the various threats and events that occur during gameplay, because long time players may eventually get bored of being attacked by simple raids where the game's only real late-game challenge comes from wealth management relative to the amount of raiders that show up. I do find it somewhat bothersome that anomaly buildings like holding spots are not available until you activate the monolith, as you can still get some basic events and encounters from anomaly without ever activating the monolith. Upon closer inspection, there is some interaction with royalty as well, mostly because of the new equipment available to your pawns. bioferrite armor and weapons give your psychic casters a large psyfocus boost, there's a new meditation type reserved for rare pawns that have the dark meditation focus, certain rituals allow you to harvest psychic sensitivity from other pawns, etc. but it doesn't make any attempt to feed into the narrative of royalty and royalty's broken empire, which i think is a missed opportunity. Another interaction with ideology comes from the inhumanized precept, you can't get it early on if you're playing with a fluid ideology but it's only relevant effect can be enabled with any player-made ideology if you select "inhumanized: required". I find that bioferrite is an incredibly overpowered item, mainly because it's wealth is the cheapest in the entire game, at roughly 4.3 silver per wall (for reference: a wood wall is worth roughly 6 silver) yet it has _more_ health than granite bricks, only rivaled by plasteel and uranium. its also laughably easy to acquire in large quantities, and any gear you make from it is on par with plasteel in terms of protection and melee damage.

Great review, thanks!

I will say that even now I'm on the fence about if I'll get it, but I don't even have money to get it right now so either way I'mma be waiting for a lot of people to finish their playthroughs and more mods to come out about it to see how it goes down, but till then I am on 1.4 using Rim of Madness to spiritually play like Anomaly. lol

I can see so many sick mods coming from this, and i will buy it when they come

The inhuman meme from Ideology is one of the strongest traits in the entire game. From a min/max perspective, it’s a game changer and you didn’t even include that as part of your review. That part is confusing to me. The DLC is the same price as Biotech was and had eighteen months of development time, so that seems fair. The Horror trope isn’t for everyone, but for those that have been playing for years and for thousands of hours, adding an existential amount of new threats is a game changer on every level, even if you don’t like horror. Good video, I haven’t seen you posting much RW for a while at least not on my recommendations feed.

Thanks for the review, largely uninterested in the horror side. Wanted to see a DLC more around expanding existing mechanics (ie. travel), but there's still hope in another 18 months :)

As a filthy non-combat community builder primarily, Anomaly doesn't offer me anything up my alley compared to Ideology and Biotech. I'm trying to play through the Anomaly questline at least, but that is one dedicated play not something I'll mix up every game like Genes or Ideoligions. Heck, even Psycasts get cool especially with Vanilla Expanded.

Anomaly is quite interesting, in my opinion. I have several hours on it now and have been enjoying it so far, both in a save that's dedicated to it and in a "normal" crashlanded save that hasn't interacted with the monolith. There's certainly a first-time experience factor to Anomaly, but I think the same can be said for a lot of things in RimWorld. Your first mech cluster, siege, sappers, and even your first standard raid were all new experiences once. Anomaly's events seem to be novel but not as uniquely challenging as some events added by DLCs, at least if you're staying on the basic level or lower. However, the events do require more than just your standard strategy in some cases, and there seems to be a wide pool of diverse events for the game to pull from. I think only time will tell if Anomaly can stay present in the game after the novelty has worn off.

I've played about 10 hours, and without being spoilery, I have encountered 2 events that really caught me off guard. 1 was a very fun change of pace from my typical early game. The other just seemed unfair in a way that i had no way to deal with until more research was done. But in both cases it was the surprise that made these interesting. In a 2nd playthrough I will be prepared. I am mixed on it. I enjoyed the experience so far, but agree that the replayability is lacking.

Yes it's great lots of fun new things to be suprised by

Re: Biotech interaction - Mechanoids themselves are, in fact, quite well integrated and offers options that can allow you to avoid or easily resolve some of the Entities. That said, there's functionally no interaction with xenogenetics, which is unfortunate. I would've loved to see interaction with that side - xenogenes retrieved from Entities, either to weaponize an aspect or to incorporate resistances/immunities. Bonus points if those genes had costs other than just a metabolic impact.

Unlike every other dlc this one does not enhance a playthrough, it becomes the playthrough. Either your doing an anomaly run or your not. I bought this the minute it came out and honestly if it was just a mod I would have uninstalled it already after giving it a go. While interesting I definitely do not consider it worth the price. If it was a free mod I wouldn't have wanted to keep it. It is really disappointing that all this dlc does is lock you into it I dont regret purchasing the other dlcs but I definitely regret this one.

Some things you missed. 1. There is also the "Inhuman" ideology, which has a large influence over how you play the game. 2. Beating anomaly does not end the game. Meaning you can beat it, and continue to move toward whatever goals you desire.

It was really enjoyable for a first playthru, but the re-playability is kinda lacking imo

Finally we got an AK 47 with a flame thrower attached. 10/10 DLC

i only want packs that add onto the main game not something that is a side quest sort of thing, that’s why ideology and biotech are so good. i love horror themed things but this is just a miss for me.

So it is as I thought. Good for one and done not really that much to keep coming back to. I'll probably end up getting it sooner or later but it's definitely not a DLC I'd keep active all the time like the others.

Thank you!! I'm buying it.

Whilst you dont need to advance the monalith, the advanced entitys will still spawn, yet not as much

While it's sad to see there's not much interaction with the old DLCs, we're sure to see this added by modders

as much as the dlc was its own separate identiy i do like theses quality of life updates and hopefully we get more rimworld is a very complicated game to not have theses

The event in this dlc are fun, despite its the obstacle eg. waxy doll, dark world, re animated corpse. those were i have seen found so far and its not a quarter of the advance entity list.

Finally someones done a realistic review that isnt, "omg its the best DLC ever, its better than Biotech, omg", instead this review is more grounded and realistic, is it a bad DLC? No. Is it a DLC that youre always going to want to have on? Definitely not.

I really did not like the DLC. It doesn’t feel like content created with the fanbase in mind. Instead of getting something like vehicles, ocean exploration/content, or more depth to existing elements of the game (I’m forever waiting for more animals, plant types, etc.) we get… SCP RimWorld edition? It’s not even repayable. The content is tedious and makes the game more difficult, along with being hyper-themed towards horror. I won’t be using it for more than a few colonies, unlike DLC like Biotech and Ideology which feel mandatory. I hope next we get a DLC that’s focused on traveling and exploring the world. Like a questing DLC that can add vehicles and boats. I also want more animals, more depth to pets, more types of plants to farm, better cooking (I love the vanilla cooking expanded mod) and so on.

Yes, it's really fun and, for me, really hard. I've lost two times in die last days 😅

I personally have no desire to get it... just yet. From what I've seen, it doesn't look or sound entertaining, but rather boring, annoying, repetitive (scripted, as someone here mentioned) and is there really really something we haven't already seen in a mod? Zombies? Eldritch magic? Chulhu cultists? Well, capturing monsters I guess, but all we've got is to keep them tied up for an eternity, every single time, beating them up from time to time for trying to escape, but we can't even tame or recreate them... just for fun. I am thinking mostly of chimaeras here, but Genetic Rim (I think it's called?) exists, idk, expanded insectoids exists and this? Is just... dissapointing overall.

Sounds like you are definitely missing some of the Anomaly experiences. Possibly just RNG being RNG. Also there are two new memes in Ideology. You forgot the Inhuman meme. Thank you for the review!

I think that it’s balanced That’s my take People complain for lack of interconnectivity between dlcs and it blows me away how little the community understands balance Just imagining biotech mixed with that gives me a headache, can’t imagine balancing on top of all that New threats is a great way to describe iy, if you’re tired of mech/human raids, this definitely shakes things up

For be it’s 1. Biotech 2. Ideology 3. Royally 4. Anomaly For me there all good, rimworld is an amazing game and the dlcs are all substantial. I just don’t like horror and I am not into the royalty or magic casting.

love your videos man, you probably give one of the best most accurate reviews, even though i love anomaly, i agree with your criticisms, they could have done more with it for sure

Good video, disappointed in this dlc as I love the previous dlcs that just add more stuff, not this story mode stuff. Wish it was like an evil/occult version of royalty as that's my fav dlc

Honestly I'm not sure about some of the info provided in this. You skipped over the inhuman meme from anomaly coming from ideology. Like for biotech the only things coming to mind were child labor and bloodfeeding. Anomaly adds the same amount. Also saints row the third with all its DLC was right around 100 bucks in 2012. I don't see where everyone is coming from saying that this content is not worth the money. There is most definitely a lot more to do with Anomaly than spending $25 to get a couple of new NPC models and some new guns and vehicles in a game a decade ago. I can go spend $15 on a Stellaris DLC to get a race of people who live underground who don't know how to dig or create underground habitats (those come from another $15 DLC). I'm wondering if anyone has seen the prices of games any point in the last 10 years

Ideology and Biotech still reigns supreme. this dlc was disappointing.

Lol guy didn't even manage mods, lets be honest every DLC is just another platform for modders to use and make better, and thast where the final score should count.

This DLC is terrible. What Rimworld needs now IMHO is to make the world more organic. And this DLC is just a mere mod added into the game. Nothing going beyond what you can get with a mod really. I think it will fall off very quickly, after people play it once or twice. I am frankly disappointed.