If you build it, they will come. And promptly be chopped to bits. That’s the promise of Besiege, the physics-based contraption-building sim that’s been a hit on Steam since it launched in Early Access in 2015. Now, four years after it launched in 1.0 on PC, Besiege is finally coming to PlayStation, the last holdout it had yet to be released on.
Both the PS4 and PS5 are getting the same console edition of Besiege that’s been on Xbox since 2022, and recently landed on Nintendo Switch. On PS5, Besiege runs at 60 frames per second at 4K resolution, and it’s one case where that extra fidelity does go a long way by making the chaos that plays out in every level a little bit more spectacular. The console version of the game contains all the campaign content from the PC version, but leaves out the level editor and multiplayer modes.
Despite being slightly pared down compared to the PC edition, Besiege’s console version has gotten positive reviews on Xbox and Switch. Level editors are nice and all, but it’s no surprise that Besiege is still doing just fine without one. The core of its gameplay — building complicated siege engines out of 70 different components and letting them loose on hostile armies — remains the same no matter what version you’re playing.
What’s always made Besiege great is its single-minded focus. It does have a campaign spanning 55 levels, but it’s as bare-bones as they come. There’s no story tying everything together and no complicated upgrade tree to climb as you work your way up the ranks. Each stage just sets out a simple problem, like, “there’s a castle and you don’t want it to be there,” and lets you solve it however you see fit. Which, of course, tends to involve lots of spinning blades and swinging hammers bolted onto a wooden frame.
Unpredictability is another of Besiege’s winning qualities. Because your siege machines and the buildings and units you’re out to destroy all run on a complex physics simulation, it’s easy for things to spiral totally out of hand. Get the weight a little wrong on one arm of your rocket-powered wooden mech, and your unstoppable engine of conquest could immediately spin itself into scattered pieces instead. But maybe in the process, it ends up flinging enough debris at an advancing army that you win the day regardless. Besiege is a rare game that makes failure as much fun as victory, and learning from mistakes an essential part of play.
The one downside of Besiege’s console edition — whether you’re playing on Xbox, Switch, or the new PlayStation launch — is that it doesn’t include The Splintered Sea expansion. Released earlier in 2024, The Splintered Sea is the very first expansion for Besiege, which adds an entirely new naval campaign, plus new building blocks suited for the expansion’s aquatic levels. So far, there’s no word of The Splintered Sea coming to the console version.
That means PC is still the best place to play Besiege if you really want to get the most out of it, but the console version is still worth checking out if that’s your only option, or if you’re good with your creative destruction sticking to dry land. This has been a surprisingly big year for Besiege, with two new console versions and the game’s first DLC hitting within the span of months, nearly a decade after it launched in Early Access. That speaks to the power of a game staying true to its vision, which just so happens to be the large-scale annihilation of opposing armies with comically destructive custom machines.
