They Are Billions
Numantian Games · Strategy, RPG, Survival, Indie
Overview
They Are Billions is a Steampunk strategy game set on a post-apocalyptic planet. Build and defend colonies to survive against the billions of the infected that seek to annihilate the few remaining living humans. Can humanity survive after the zombie apocalypse?
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,999 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Players describe They Are Billions as a steampunk RTS crossed with tower defense. You build a colony, clear a map full of the infected, and wall up against hordes that grow until the final wave fills the screen. Praise goes to that loop: survival mode on randomly generated maps, the tension of a colony that can fall at any moment, the art and music, and a pause key that lets slower players give orders calmly. Fans call it addictive and say they come back to it every few months, and some treat the brutal difficulty as the reason to play.
24% of the longer reviews bring up the save system. The game saves only when you exit, so a single missed zombie late in a long mission sends you back to the start. Reviewers also say missions are slow with no fast-forward, that the campaign's hero missions are a tedious hunt for hidden items, that research choices can't be undone, and that unit pathfinding and attack alerts fail them at the worst moments. The campaign divides people, and some players tell newcomers to start with survival mode instead.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Survival mode and random maps that keep people coming backHigh
13% of the longer reviews mention survival mode, mostly to praise it, and 9% praise the randomly generated maps and the replay value they give. Some bought the game in early access, when survival was the whole game, and still prefer it. One player writes: "The survival missions are the core content of this game; the campaign is a giant tutorial." Others set the days, map and zombie density to tune the challenge and keep climbing the difficulty scale. A smaller group says survival gets samey once you settle on a winning build, since the same few units and towers solve most maps.
Steampunk look, music and screen-filling hordesHigh
The art style, steampunk setting, music or atmosphere come up in 13% of the longer reviews, mostly with praise. Players enjoy watching thousands of individual infected crash into their walls, and several are impressed that the game stays smooth with that many units on screen, even on old hardware. The complaints here are about readability: some find the maps too dark, with no brightness setting, and say lone zombies blend into the terrain.
A pause key that makes the RTS approachableMedium
Pausing comes up in 7% of the longer reviews, mostly as a plus. You can place buildings and give orders while time is stopped, and reviewers say that lets people who dislike fast clicking enjoy an RTS. "The pause button is your best friend and your worst enemy," one fan writes. A player who had broken a wrist says it let them play one-handed: "The pause feature allows you to fully play the game while paused, then you merely unpause to allow it to progress." A minority complains that the game expects so much pausing it barely feels real-time: "Imagine if you played The Sims but you HAD TO pause time constantly to play correctly."
An addictive one-more-run loopMedium
5% of the longer reviews call the game addictive. Players describe losing track of time, uninstalling to stop playing and reinstalling a few months later. 3% say each loss teaches them something, and one player calls the punishment fair: "Mistakes are punished heavily, but I never felt that the game was unfair." Fans enjoy the slow push outward, clearing zombie villages and widening the walls.
Workshop maps, the editor and weekly challengesLow
Custom maps, the map editor or workshop campaigns come up in 3% of the longer reviews, almost always as a plus that extends the game long after the main modes ("simply excellent, infinite content from fans"). A few long-time players say the weekly community challenge keeps them returning. Some note that many custom maps are not in English.
Where players are split
One stray zombie can end hours of workHigh
17% of the longer reviews describe the same moment: a single infected slips past a patrol, touches a tent or house, the building spawns more zombies and the colony collapses within a minute. Fans call this the heart of the game and compare it to Dark Souls (2% use that comparison outright). They build layered walls and fallback lines to contain outbreaks and say the risk makes every victory count. Critics call it a cheap mechanic that turns the game into a hunt for one grey dot, especially early on, when you have only a handful of starting rangers and can't train more until you reach stone. "I love having 1 single infected slip by all my units ending my entire hour long runs," one player writes, sarcastically. Several say even the easiest difficulty is hard for newcomers, and a few say the tutorial barely explains the systems: "Absolutely no tutorialization beyond some help menus that barely explain anything."
The campaignMedium
Reviewers say the campaign arrived with the full release, and they are divided on it. 4% of the longer reviews dismiss it outright or tell others to skip it, while 2% speak warmly of it, and a similar 2% say survival is where the game really shines. Fans like the tech tree carried between missions, the hand-made maps, the mix of mission types and the newspaper clippings that explain how the world fell. Critics say most missions repeat the same build order, that the defend-the-outpost swarm missions can be won by stacking soldiers and waiting, and that the difficulty jumps around. One reviewer takes a middle view: "I agree with them that the campaign is not great, but that's just one (small) part of the game."
Price: worth it, or wait for a saleMedium
6% of the longer reviews bring up price. Fans count the hours they got from it and call it a bargain. Others say it feels dated for what reviewers quote as a $30 price and advise waiting for a sale: "I would recommend this game for like 15$ but for 30$ i just find it too mediocre for that price."
A finished game, or an abandoned oneMedium
5% of the longer reviews ask for a sequel, DLC or another campaign. A smaller 2% call the game abandoned, pointing to bugs and quality-of-life issues they say were never fixed. Others push back: "Some people say the game was abandoned, but it wasn't. It was just...completed." Some players like owning a game with no paid add-ons, while one who still enjoys it warns anyone hoping for regular updates that "they made a good game and never looked back."
What frustrates players
No saves during a missionHigh
The save system comes up in 24% of the longer reviews, more than any other complaint here, and in 36% of the longer not-recommended reviews. The game saves when you quit and resumes from there, but you can't load an earlier point, so a mistake made deep into a long mission means replaying it from the start. Players call it forced ironman mode, and several suggest keeping ironman as an option with its own achievements or leaderboard. 1% of the longer reviews describe copying the save folder by hand as a workaround. A minority defends the design as the source of the tension: "I think if you could save it would be a worse game for it."
Long, slow missions with no fast-forwardHigh
22% of the longer reviews call parts of the game tedious, boring, repetitive or a grind, and 4% ask specifically for a speed-up or fast-forward. Players describe the same slow opening on every map, then long stretches of waiting for resources, trains or the final wave after the map is already cleared: "without a way to speed up the in-game time you end up staring at the screen for several minutes waiting for the final wave to arrive." 70 reviews say in so many words that the game doesn't respect the player's time. Some also complain about campaign population targets that leave them carpeting the map with tents, saying that "the mission won't end until you spend another 10-15 minutes building houses."
Hero missions in the campaignHigh
13% of the longer reviews mention the hero missions, where you guide one character through a bunker. About half of those mentions call them boring, tedious, slow or a waste of time, against roughly one in seven that speak well of them. Players say the hero has no active abilities, so the missions come down to kiting zombies room by room and then hovering the mouse over every object to find the research and empire points the campaign depends on. 62 reviews call this "Where's Waldo" or pixel hunting. "Every step I take exploring these outposts is a second of my life I can never get back," one player writes. Several mention a mod that skips them, and a few enjoy the change of pace.
Pathfinding, controls and missing alertsMedium
7% of the longer reviews criticise controls or the interface and 6% mention pathfinding. Players say units snag on each other, on buildings and on train tracks ("units just constantly get stuck in walls"), that you can't rebind every hotkey or add units to an existing control group, that health bars only show while you hold a key, and that double-clicking can select or delete every building of a type. A smaller group (1%) says attack warnings don't fire reliably, which matters in a game where one unseen zombie is fatal: "The warnings for when things (both buildings and military units) are under attack don't always go off."
Mutants and harpies that punish expansionMedium
4% of the longer reviews bring up the infected mutants, harpies and giants. Players who knew the game before mutants arrived say a little noise early in a run can pull them in from across the map: "Then they added the mutants and they just aggro at random from all the way across the map in the early game when you aren't prepared to deal with them." Players also object to harpies jumping walls in final waves, and a few say wave warnings name one direction while zombies arrive from another.
Research choices you can't undo, and retries that cost pointsMedium
4% of the longer reviews complain that campaign research can't be reset, so picking the wrong early techs (players name farms, stone walls and shock towers among the ones you need) can leave later missions nearly unwinnable: "The game went from a very good one to an Okay once I realized I can't reset the research tree." Another 2% object that each failed attempt lowers the mission's reward, which they say makes struggling players weaker. Some also note you can't replay a hero mission to collect items you missed. Several recommend reading a tech guide before starting.
Voice actingMedium
3% of the longer reviews mention the voice work, mostly to mock it: repetitive unit barks on every click, cringeworthy lines and a grating announcer ("I hate the announcer and his repetitive and painfully obvious observations"). A few players find the barks charming and quote them affectionately.
Crashes and lost savesLow
3% of the longer reviews report crashes, freezes or corrupted saves, sometimes wiping a whole campaign: "my power went out and my save file got corrupted." Others mention the SlimDX installer blocking launch, problems on multi-monitor setups, and poor Linux or Proton support. A few legitimate owners say the anti-piracy check spawned zombies inside their base.
Modding locked downLow
2% of the longer reviews criticise limits on modding, saying the files are protected and only maps are supported, so community fixes for saves, speed or hero missions aren't possible: "I'm genuinely frustrated that the devs specifically do NOT allow the game to be modded."
No quick restart, and no co-opLow
2% of the longer reviews say that once a run is lost they must sit and watch the base fall; a couple point out a Retire option, but it counts as a defeat. Another 2% ask for co-op or multiplayer.
3. The player conversation
Several reviewers describe their relationship with the game as love-hate in those words. The one-liners are mostly enthusiastic notes about addiction, difficulty and zombie slaughter, while the save system, hero missions and pacing get picked apart in the detailed reviews, sometimes by people who still recommend the game. Some reviews were edited over time, in both directions: players who first rage-quit and came back to win, and early-access fans who switched to negative after trying the campaign.
People who quit early tend to describe failing the first campaign missions, getting little explanation of how things work, and wishing they had noticed the save rules before the refund window closed. Players with long histories in the game talk instead about high difficulty settings, survival maps, the weekly challenge and the workshop, and their complaints are about mutant aggro, unit targeting and fixes they wanted that never came. Advice to newcomers turns up on both sides: start on a low difficulty, try survival before the campaign, use the pause key, build double walls, and look up which techs matter.
4. What the developers could do
- Add optional mid-mission saves or checkpoints. The save system is raised in more reviews than any other complaint, and several critics say they would accept ironman as an opt-in mode with its own leaderboard or achievements.
- Add a fast-forward and a way to call the final wave early. Players describe waiting with nothing to do once a map is cleared and say the lack of speed control makes failed retries far more painful.
- Rework or make optional the hero missions. Reviewers ask for highlighted collectibles, a faster hero or a way to earn the same research points elsewhere, and point to a fan mod that skips them.
- Allow campaign research respecs and drop the score penalty for failed attempts. Players say permanent tech picks and shrinking rewards can soft-lock a campaign tens of hours in.
- Fix pathfinding and make attack alerts reliable. Reviewers blame units stuck on terrain or each other, and warnings that don't fire, for runs lost to a single zombie.
- Fill basic RTS control gaps. Reviewers want full hotkey rebinding, a toggle for always-on health bars, adding units to control groups, a confirmation before mass-deleting buildings, and a clean restart option.
- Fix crashes and save corruption. A small group lost campaign progress to crashes, launch failures or corrupted files, which hurts more because there is only one save.
- Open the game to mods. Players say mod support would let the community fix saves, speed and hero missions themselves and keep the game alive alongside the sequel some of them ask for.
