Banished revolves around the player guiding citizens of a remote community of outcasts to grow and maintain a settlement through a command economy.

Additional citizens come from two sources, the birth of children and the arrival of nomads, wandering groups that wish to join the player's town.

[5][6] In a September 2013 interview, Hodorowicz said the video game series Anno was a big inspiration, which influenced his decision not to include combat in the initial release.

Hodorowicz stated he had put over 5500 hours into the development of the game, and hoped to eventually add support for Linux and OS X.

[2] PC Gamer's Andy Chalk gave the game a score of 70 out of 100, stating that it is "a nice change of pace for city-builders", but noted that as the population grows, survival becomes less of a focus and city management takes over.

[1] Daniel Starkey of GameSpot scored the game 8/10, noting how the different mechanics of each structure interlock and provide relevance, and praising the difficulty.

[13] IGN 's Rowan Kaiser awarded an 8.3/10 score, noting that Banished suffered when the gameplay difficulty was lower, while also making the same comparison to Dwarf Fortress as Game Informer.

[15] The Escapist's Greg Tito gave the game 3.5/5 stars, praising the simulation aspects and interface, but noting that it doesn't take long to see everything it has to offer.