Sometimes a game can transport you back to an exact moment in time. When I think of Ilhéus , I flash back to January 2020. It was a cold New York winter, and I was bundled up in my apartment for a particularly bitter weekend. I was feeling a bit of cabin fever, but I didn’t dare brave the frost. I needed a warm escape, and I found it in developer Coatsink’s minimalist city builder. I spent hours meticulously crafting the perfect islands, placing each building only to maximize my score. The stakes were low enough to create a moment of zen. I didn’t leave my desk, but it felt like I was on vacation.
Five years later, that feeling returns with Islanders: New Shores . The sequel builds on the bones of its predecessor with careful thought, adding new buildings, tweaked scoring strategies, and a visual update designed to showcase a new photo mode. These new updates naturally fit into a winning idea without overcomplicating its quiet enjoyment. And with a release on all major platforms instead of just PC, it instantly positioned itself as an early staple in my Nintendo Switch 2 library. No matter where I am, I can always have an island escape on the speed dial.
Islanders: New Shores is a simplified city builder that distills a complex genre into its tactile joy. It’s all about placing structures in spots that will maximize your scoring potential and synergize with the surrounding environment. In its main high-score mode, I’m given an island theme centered around one of six colorful biomes. It’s a blank canvas that I quickly begin filling, as I have a set of buildings and structures to place. In my first run, for example, I start with a kelp farm in my hand. I can place it anywhere on flat land, but it’s best placed facing as much water as possible. From there, I place a few kelp fields from my hand near it. Each will receive a score boost if it’s within the farm’s radius, and additional points will be awarded for any other fields that are also nearby. The idea is to make each building placement more valuable as a run progresses through strategic land management.
Reaching certain score thresholds grants me more structures to place, but the added twist this time is the perks. These are special effects that can give me any number of buffs, from reducing the size of the next building I place to giving me a massive, elevated platform to build on. That twist combines with some additional nuances that define New Shores beyond the islanders’ first entry. For example, I can now place buildings like beacons that are scored higher based on how far their line of sight can extend. The end game is getting my score high enough to unlock a new biome and keep boosting my score as much as possible.
While this sounds complex, Ilhéus ‘ strength lies in how streamlined it keeps this concept. I can always see exactly what my score will be when placing a building, and I’m encouraged to hover around the map to find the highest yield point. It’s a good idea to plan ahead, leaving some open space near trees in case I design a windmill that makes the most of the space, but I can still casually drop buildings where they feel most aesthetically pleasing and go far.
While there’s some serious strategic depth, it’s these simple pleasures that make New Shores such a calming summer getaway. I’m less about filling the high-stress role of a city engineer and more about indulging that inner kid who loved stacking his blocks and sorting them by some color system only he could decode. Islanders finds a primitive kind of gameplay at the very foundation of the genre, buried beneath all those twisted power lines and sewer pipes. What’s an empty island if not a gigantic sandbox?
While the first Ilhéus ended up being released on the Switch and benefited from the Steam deck’s subsequent release, I’m happy to be able to take New Shores on the go from day one. I don’t want my memories to be chained to a dark corner of my apartment again. It feels like a betrayal of a sequel so airy it begs to be a traveling companion. I want it to act as a reflection of air, momentarily clearing the smog of the world around my Switch 2 screen. It’s a moment of peace on a crowded subway ride. A brief retreat from a stressful family gathering. An hour of gentle play while letting the Aloe Vera soothe a sunburn from a long beach day. I want to carry that warmth that got me through a chilly weekend with me wherever I go.
