Spent a good while making my own custom subrace in the gene editor when starting a new playthrough as I felt satisfied I had done enough in the last one, an exceedingly rare offshoot of the Dirtmoles and Wasters genetic code meeting in the middle that suffers from incredibly short and cancer-ridden lifespans as a result of such abrupt and wanton sewing together of DNA, forced live in small and cramped undercities away from the stinging sunlight and world that seeks to hurt them above whilst hunting for a cure to their afflictions. They earned the name 'Darkers' from the most prolific ideology among their shunned kind, simply due to how much time they spend underground in the pitch black with skin coloured like blackened stone as a result.
My random starting location for the trio I began with was practically spitting distance from the north pole of this rimworld, frozen over and with no fertile soil to speak of. Noticed within the first couple days as I began hauling dwindling resources and hollowing out a cave a brewing relationship between a young pair in my colony of similar age, and within a week there was already alerts of a pregnancy which caught me off guard since we had no food or medicine with beds only placed down an hour before, nevermind the fact it would be the first time I'd even seen a baby/child since I started the DLC with no idea how to prepare for one.
In a colony that's only been living on for about a couple hours I don't think the game has ever made me hold my breath this much even when staring down hordes of mechanoids threatening to wipe out what I've spent real world months building up. The mad rush to build a strong robust shelter, hunt as much wildlife as possible that roamed in to make warm clothes just barely able to stave off hypothermia and cook meals to eat, making sure the soon to be mother was protected and always eating before anyone else... It's put to the test everything I've learned in the 700 hours I've put into this game, nevermind triggered some deep seated anxiety when I watched my pregnant colonist be the target of wild animals seeking meals and raiders looking to kidnap someone new.
And after building a crib cobbled together out of wood I had to trade my starting meals and medicine for, right on cue she went into labor. I got a popup saying how there can, and will likely be complications during the childbirth including the death of both mother and child if there is no skilled doctor on hand, if the room is unclean and surroundings not sterile, and I read this as she's having contractions in a crack of a cave with a bed pressed up against limestone walls in the dark... Game surprisingly modelled everything with an incredible amount of attention to detail that caught me off guard, with gameplay effects like contractions, mood swings, morning sickness, nausea and exhaustion being seen in the period leading up to the final moment with the labor itself having plentiful different stages to it as well. I kind of just stared when she entered the last segment of 'pushing' with her new husband stood at her bedside malnourished and recovering from flu, slowly getting to see a bar fill up to indicate how long the process was going to take, and literally crossing my fingers without even realising as it crawled near to the end.
I've got no real food left in the colony especially now it's winter, not like any plants could grow during the 'summer' here either, pretty much all of my resources have already gone into preparing for this kid and I don't quite know if in the coming weeks I'll be so lucky like I was here to have no immediate complications. Baby meals can only be made from mushed vegetables and I don't think a single blade of grass has grown since I started on this map, his Mother's milk can only go so far and Dad's already been starving himself the last couple days to make sure his wife can eat.
This DLC though, what can I say, a Colony that's come from me experimenting with new races and concepts has been able to hold my breath and unnerve me more than any other moment in memory whilst playing this game, it's making me play completely differently and so much more carefully than usual, I try to pride myself on a deep knowledge of all of Rimworld's mechanics and tricks but here I feel lost and it's so fucking exciting. There's no limit to the things I'd consider to keep Mum, Dad and baby alive and pushing on right now, these outcasts from distant tribes and their unfortunate genetic code. The fact that stuff like selling drugs, partaking in slavery, trying my hand at organ harvesting, raiding and stealing from visitors might become options forced upon me and this impoverished family in desperation against their beliefs rather than something I can freely dip into for a laugh, convenience or whatever other excuse I could make is honestly a very powerful feeling, especially when backed into a corner like this.
Tynan stated when he was explaining the ideas behind Biotech why he went for topics of children, reproduction and families that the core goal of Rimworld was 'to generate emotionally compelling human stories', and I think in all the mods I've installed and colonies I've made since I started this game back in 2018 I might've lost sight of that part in always trying to make something grandiose, building bases in the most efficient manner possible and micromanaging every last detail of my colony to the point where the story being told was bland, boring and uneventful, I wasn't interacting with people or struggling colonists but drafted pawns walking the most productive and profitable paths with some end goal in mind that didn't care much about them. With 1.4 and the DLC I've had to pretty much disable all but a small handful of quality-of-life additions, turning a list of usually 200 mods to 10, and the experience has been nothing but humbling and insightful, a reminder of just how much I really do love this game for all the different ways it can be played and how strong that vision feels now.
I think it's human instinct that when babies and children are brought into any setting even when they're virtual, simulated and pixelated, everything around them is taken much more seriously and thoughtfully, and Biotech tapped into that I feel by bringing that serious and mature context into a depraved world that has perhaps slipped a little too much into senseless organ harvesting and war crimes, for in it I found the starts of one of those compelling human stories I'm excited to see to it's end through every twist, turn and bend it'll take.
10/10, would buy the whole game and dunk another 700 hours into it again.