Ludeon Studios has finally released the big 1.0 patch for their sci-fi colony management game, RimWorld.

RimWorld has been in development for five and a half years, and first launched on Steam Early Access back in November 2013.

The game has gathered a significant following over the years, and is often cited as one of the best Early Access games on Steam. You can check out the launch trailer above.

Here’s a rundown of the game:

RimWorld is a sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Inspired by Dwarf Fortress, Firefly, and Dune. You begin with three survivors of a shipwreck on a distant world.

RimWorld is a story generator – it’s designed to co-author tragic, twisted, and triumphant stories about imprisoned pirates, desperate colonists, starvation and survival. It works by controlling the “random” events that the world throws at you. Every thunderstorm, pirate raid, and traveling salesman is a card dealt into your story by the AI Storyteller. There are several storytellers to choose from. Randy Random does crazy stuff, Cassandra Classic goes for rising tension, and Phoebe Chillax likes to relax.

The game generates a whole planet from pole to equator. You choose whether to land your crash pods in a cold northern tundra, a parched desert flat, a temperate forest, or a steaming equatorial jungle. Different areas have different animals, plants, diseases, temperatures, rainfall, mineral resources, and terrain. These challenges of surviving in a disease-infested, choking jungle are very different from those in a parched desert wasteland or a frozen tundra with a two-month growing season.

Key Features:

• Manage colonists’ moods, needs, wounds, and illnesses.
• Build colonies in the forest, desert, jungle, tundra, and more.
• Watch colonists develop and break relationships with family members, lovers, and spouses.
• Replace wounded limbs and organs with prosthetics, bionics, or biological parts harvested from others.
• Fight pirates, tribes, mad animals, giant insects and ancient killing machines.
• Craft structures, weapons, and apparel from metal, wood, stone, cloth, and futuristic materials.
• Tame and train cute pets, productive farm animals, and deadly attack beasts.
• Trade with passing ships and caravans.
• Form caravans complete quests, trade, attack other factions, or migrate your whole colony.
• Dig through snow, weather storms, and fight fires.
• Capture refugees or prisoners and turn them to your side or sell them into slavery.
• Discover a new generated world each time you play.
• Explore hundreds of wild and interesting mods on the Steam Workshop.
• Learn to play easily with the help of an intelligent and unobtrusive AI tutor.

RimWorld is available on Windows PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam and the Humble Store for $34.99.