Review Vakil 5/5 · Jun 30, 2025
What a great puzzle game!!!
The Banished Vault is a really cool puzzle game. You control a 'monastic vault' that travels through space and stops at randomly generated solar systems. At each of these systems, you manage resources in order to gather more resources; for instance, iron is required to mine titanium, titanium is required to harvest methane in space, methane is required to create …
The Banished Vault is a really cool puzzle game. You control a 'monastic vault' that travels through space and stops at randomly generated solar systems. At each of these systems, you manage resources in order to gather more resources; for instance, iron is required to mine titanium, titanium is required to harvest methane in space, methane is required to create the potions your space monks need to hibernate while traveling between systems, and so on. The point of the game is to discover, travel to, and build holy sites on planets designated as hallowed.
The complexity of balancing storage space, fuel consumption, action economy, and the resources needed to hibernate, travel, mine, and build are very challenging. I found that the only way I could beat the game was to use the printed game manual (available for $5 from the devs) and a sheet of paper to map out exactly what I needed and how to get it and deliver it to where it was needed. The soundtrack is also really hauntingly cool.
I did play it on my Steam Deck but mostly on my laptop. The cloud saves worked great. For those that enjoy a challenging, space-themed puzzle game, this is really cool one.