Thunderful’s SteamWorld game series has bounced from genre to genre, starting with the original Search SteamWorld (a Metroid-inspired adventure of platforming extraction) and expanding with SteamWorld Heist (a turn-based tactical pirate shootout) and SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech (a card-based role-playing game). Now Thunderful and in-house studio The Station are taking SteamWorld in a completely different direction, with a new city builder called Building SteamWorld.
Building SteamWorld comes with a twist of its own. Apart from being a city building game, where players are tasked with building a thriving mining town above ground, they will also have to gather resources underground while battling monsters that live in the mines. In a press release, Thunderful described Building SteamWorld as a mix of Anno, the 25-year-old real-time strategy economic sim that’s now published by Ubisoft, and Dungeon Keeper, the dungeon management sim from Bullfrog.
You can get a taste of this Building SteamWorldThe dual function building simulation management style looks like the trailer above. Or catch up on Monday SteamWorld Telegraph broadcastwhich delves deeper into Building SteamWorld.
Building SteamWorld is slated for release in 2023 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The developer says that Build is developed with both PC and console in mind, “ensuring that the game design, UX, and UI work just as well with a controller in hand as they do with mouse and keyboard.”
A demo for Building SteamWorld is now available on Steam if you want to try.