Parents' Guide to

From Dust

By Chad Sapieha, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 10+

Innovative "god" game tasks players to help tiny tribesmen.

Game Xbox 360 2011
From Dust Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

  • From Dust Game: Screenshot #1
  • From Dust Game: Screenshot #2
  • From Dust Game: Screenshot #3

Community Reviews

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age 8+

Based on 1 parent review

James C
James C Parent
January 21, 2012
age 8+

Not as violent as you think.

Pretty enjoyable and creative, violence isn't even really applicable and the deaths of tribes men are much less violent the deaths depicted in some books children read in school.

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
See all 1 parent review

What’s It About?

Players become a god to groups of tiny tribesmen in FROM DUST, a downloadable game available through Xbox Live Arcade. Through a series of more than a dozen levels, players use powerful abilities that allow them to shift the earth to create natural water dams, move water to help vegetation to flourish, and even relocate molten lava to create rocky barriers that protect against floods. Players will also gain special powers as the game progresses, including the ability to thicken water for brief periods to allow tribesmen to cross and to cause droughts to keep rising waters at bay. Challenge stages offer players the opportunity to hone their godlike skills in situations involving tsunamis and wildfires.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (1 ):
Kids say (3 ):

In a marketplace swamped with shooters and platformers, From Dust stands out as fresh and original. There’s something gratifying about shaping the earth to your will, sometimes completely altering a landscape with simple depressions of a couple of buttons. It can be fun to simply play with the physics system and watch how the game's seemingly intelligent virtual water finds ways of overcoming your attempts to contain it with rocky and earthen dams.

However, your objectives aren't always as satisfying as the world in which they take place. Short levels provide players a series of simple goals -- reach this tower, collect that artifact -- that force players into playing a certain way using specific abilities. You're teased with the tools and potential for experimentation, but rarely given the opportunity to fully exploit them. It's still a lot of fun, but we came away wishing we'd been given the sort of freedom more befitting a god.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about religion in games. Do you enjoy the feeling of power conferred by "god" games that provide players with seemingly omnipotent abilities? Do they alter the way you think about your own spirituality?

  • Families can also discuss violence in games. How do you feel when you see your tiny tribesmen washed out to see or taken by fire? Are you emotionally affected by their deaths? Do these scenes make you reflect on real-world disasters?

Game Details

  • Platform: Xbox 360
  • Available online?: Not available online
  • Publisher: UbiSoft
  • Release date: July 27, 2011
  • Genre: Simulation
  • ESRB rating: E for Mild Violence
  • Last updated: March 8, 2019

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