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.

Community Reviews

age 8+

Based on 1 parent review

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

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.

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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