11 – Kaiserpunk
Kaiserpunk should be right around the corner, as the game is set to come out in the third quarter of 2024, which is coming to a close in a month. This is an ambitious project from Overseer Games and it’s attempting to be a mix of grand strategy and city-building, taking place during the onset of the 20th century. Being made by a small team, the fact that the game is aiming to be so much all at once has me fully captivated to see how well it’s going to turn out. There are over 100 regions to be conquered, and the need to establish production chains that comprise over 100 different resources that range from mines, food, refineries, and manufactured goods. At the same time, you’ll need to keep your population happy and product.
It’s one thing to manufacture what you need, it’s a whole ‘nother job to get the things you need to your troops on the frontlines of your growing empire: there’s going to be a massive focus on logistics too. What I’m curious about is if there’s going to be any real-time strategy element that takes place on the battlefield, or if it’s just going to be auto-resolve stuff.
10 – Fronstpunk 2
The first Frostpunk never impressed me as much as it did most people, and I’m terribly sorry for that, as the idea behind it sounded so much fun, but I never quite got around to enjoying its more dubious societal-management mechanics because the city-building and survival- aspect of it just wasn’t that fun, and it was quite restrictive.
Fast forward 30 years (of in-game time), and Frostpunk 2 is replacing nature as the main antagonism for “human nature”, and it’s scaling up quite a bit. In Frostpunk 2 you’ll no longer build small, low-level housing across several days and weeks, instead, you’ll be crafting planning your city on a more strategic scale, by constructing entire districts over many months.
With the threat of immediate survival at bay, people will start looking somewhere else for trouble. It’s up to you, the Steward of the city, to keep things people happy, the factions struggling for power under control, and to establish societal and political balance. It looks to be an interesting step up from the first game, and one that might address my initial hurdles of too much focused on survival mechanics and too little on the societal-management. Frostpunk 2 comes out September 20th, and it will cost you $44.99 | 44,99€ | £37.99
9 – Sumerian Six
Coming out on the 2nd of September, Sumerian Six will have you leading a team of commando scientists behind the enemy lines of the Third Reich. As it’s customary, the nazis are trying their luck with experimental and arcane weaponry to try and scoop out a win.
The game plays like a stealth game in the vein of Commandos, Desperados 3, and Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew.
8 – Mars Tactics
Mars Tactics is another sci-fi, turn-based strategy game being published by Hooded Horse, with a pinch of large-scale strategic operations. You’ll be leading either the space capitalists or the space communists as you battle out for the control of the Red Planet.
Having played the demo, the game’s voxel destruction is the definitive highlight, and I can see quite a lot of emergent gameplay moments happening. If you want to play the demo it’s still available on Steam.
7 – Menace
Hooded Horse has their hands all over the strategy cookie jar. Open said cookie jar, and the game being made by the developers of Battle Brothers will come out swinging with blood and guts galore. Menace is a turn-based strategy and space RPG where you’ll act as commander of a strike force of space marines, mercenaries, and criminals.
It looks like following the logic of Battle Brothers: you’ll start out small, by leading a rag-tag bunch of soldiers and slowly evolve to face an unknown threat. You’ll be able to recruit the help of not only infantry but also tanks, artillery, and mechs.
While there’s no real gameplay, there’s enough teaser material to hype me up for its potential.
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