Populous: The Beginning
In the third part of the Populous series, you control your shaman and the tribe of her followers in a difficult quest to conquer all 25 planets of a star system and ascend to godhood.
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- Released
- 1998
- Developer
- Bullfrog Productions
- Platforms
- 2 systems
- Critics
- Not scored
- Steam Deck
- playable
- Download
- 0.39 GB
What is Populous: The Beginning?
In the third part of the Populous series, you control your shaman and the tribe of her followers in a difficult quest to conquer all 25 planets of a star system and ascend to godhood.
Description as published by the developer on its own store page, read 30 August 2026. It is marketing copy, not our assessment.
The record
| First released | 30 November 1998 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Bullfrog Productions |
| Publisher | Electronic Arts |
| Platforms | PlayStation, Steam Deck |
| Genres | Role-Playing, Strategy |
| Languages | 1 supported |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata Q1070478, seeded 30 August 2026. Store data from Steam, read 30 August 2026.
How was Populous: The Beginning received?
Method. Player figures are Steam's own totals for the PC version, read 30 August 2026. The Metacritic score is the one Steam publishes on its store page and can lag the site itself. Neither is our opinion. We have not published a review of this game.
What does it support?
| Capability | Support |
|---|---|
| Controller | Not stated |
| Cloud saves | Yes |
| Cross-platform play | No |
| Mod support | No official workshop |
| Online play | Single-player only |
| In-game purchases | No |
| Steam Deck | playable |
| Download size | 0.39 GB |
| Add-on content | None listed |
| Age gate | None |
Method. Read from the publisher's Steam listing on 30 August 2026. Describes the PC version. Console versions differ.
What does it cost?
Steam price in US dollars, read 30 August 2026. Prices move hourly and vary by region. Check the current price.
Is Populous: The Beginning worth it?
88% of 448 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. It costs $4.99 on Steam.
That is the data, not a verdict for sale: whether it is worth it depends on the price you pay and what you want. Players do report problems — see the reported-problems section below before buying. We have not published our own review of this game.
How long is Populous: The Beginning? How long to beat it
Total play time for Populous: The Beginning is about 32.6 hours to do everything, and around 23.8 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 23.8h | 7 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 30h | 2 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 32.6h | 3 |
At its current price of $4.99, beating the main story works out to about $0.21 per hour. That is the price divided by the hours, a value read and not a verdict: a longer game costs less per hour, which is not the same as being the better game.
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
Populous: The Beginning system requirements
The minimum requirements from Populous: The Beginning's Steam page. These are what it takes to launch and be playable, not to run at high settings.
| Memory | 0.5 GB RAM (other games at this level) |
|---|---|
| Processor | 1.8 GHz |
| Graphics | 3D graphics card compatible with |
| Storage | 0.39 GB (more games this size) |
Where Populous: The Beginning sits on the grid
Compare the whole cataloguePopulous: The Beginning plotted on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so its position is its real one. Change either axis to see where it lands.
1 games have both
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- PlayStation
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
Populous: The Beginning price & deals: is it on sale?
We have one reading so far: $4.99 on 30 August 2026. Prices are checked daily from here, and this becomes a chart once there is more than one point to join. A single observation is a price, not a history.
What readers say about Populous: The Beginning
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
Loading reviews…
Problems players report
We read the 31 most recent negative Steam reviews of Populous: The Beginning on 30 August 2026 and counted what they mention. These are complaints, not confirmed defects: we have not reproduced any of them, and a review describes one person's machine. What the counts tell you is which problems more than one person ran into.
- Crashes and freezes6 of 31 (19%)
Crashes upon hitting new game, graphics options cannot be changed even though the options menu says i have changed the resolution.
Steam review, 9 March 2024 · 0 hours played · 49 readers marked it helpfulTried a few different fixes but the game just freezes on launch.
Steam review, 2 August 2025 · 0 hours played · 12 readers marked it helpful
Counted by keyword across review text, so a review discussing two problems is counted under both. Read the reviews yourself.
Did it run on your PC?
Tell other players how it ran on your machine. One tap, from your saved PC if you have one.
Where Populous: The Beginning appears
The ranked lists and finder pages Populous: The Beginning qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
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Games like Populous: The Beginning
24 games overlap with Populous: The Beginning on the tags Steam players applied to it, on genre, and on theme. The closest are Populous, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky and Kingdom Heroes 8.
Common questions about Populous: The Beginning
What platforms is Populous: The Beginning on?
Populous: The Beginning is available on PlayStation, Steam Deck. It first released in 1998.
How much does Populous: The Beginning cost?
$4.99 on Steam in the United States, read on 30 August 2026. Prices move often and vary by region, so check the store before buying.
Do players recommend Populous: The Beginning?
88% of 448 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. That is players rating it, not our review. We have not published a review of this game.
Does Populous: The Beginning work on Steam Deck?
Valve rates Populous: The Beginning as playable on the Steam Deck, from its own testing.
How big is the Populous: The Beginning download?
0.39 GB on PC, from the storage requirement on its Steam listing. Console versions differ.
Who made Populous: The Beginning?
Populous: The Beginning was developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts.
Is Populous: The Beginning worth it in 2026?
88% of 448 Steam reviews are positive (Very Positive), and it is $4.99 on steam. That is the strongest signal we hold; "worth it" depends on the price you pay and what you want, so weigh the sentiment against the current price above.
Is Populous: The Beginning on sale?
Not at the moment. Populous: The Beginning is at its $4.99 list price on Steam, read on 30 August 2026. It has been cheaper before; the price history above shows when.
What are the system requirements for Populous: The Beginning?
At minimum, Populous: The Beginning needs 0.5 GB RAM, a 1.8 GHz, a 3D graphics card compatible with, 0.39 GB of storage, from its Steam listing. That is what it takes to launch and be playable, not to run at high settings. Check it against your own PC on the can-I-run page.
How long does it take to beat Populous: The Beginning?
about 23.8 hours for the main story, 30 hours with the main extras, 32.6 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.