Blending the base-building colony sim stylings of Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress with tower defense elements and the cozy vibes of games such as Spiritfarer, new Steam strategy game Ark of Charon sees you building a city of caretakers atop the back of a young, beast-like World Tree sapling. Guide it safely to its destination to restore balance to a damaged, post-apocalyptic world on the brink of disaster, holding off the evil forces that would see that vision of chaos to its terrible conclusion.
When the World Tree withers and dies, humanity goes with it. Fortunately, a new sapling has sprouted – but this giant creature must be carefully escorted to its nursery in order to grow into its full-fledged form. Your race of guardians will need to gather resources and build atop the sapling’s back in this strategy game, creating a veritable mobile fortress that can withstand all threats as you make your pilgrimage – the eponymous Ark of Charon.
Perhaps obviously given your location atop a giant, walking creature’s back, you’re somewhat limited in building space here. Verticality can be a welcome solution to that problem, although you’ll have to construct your towers strategically, keeping gravity in mind at all times, to ensure the whole thing doesn’t come toppling down on your own heads.
With your journey requiring you to move between safe zones known as ‘campfires,’ you’ll want to ensure that your supplies are well-stocked and your defenses are nailed down before heading out into the wilds. That means mining, farming, and excavating to ensure you have the necessary resources to construct an impenetrable bastion capable of holding your attackers at bay.
You’ll also encounter lost human technologies and other relics while scavenging amongst the ruins down below, and can make use of these to construct more advanced facilities and increasingly powerful defensive tools to keep yourself – and the World Tree sapling – safe.
Ark of Charon is set to launch on Steam in 2024. You can head to the Steam store page for more details, or to add it to your Steam wishlist to keep track of when it becomes available.
You’ll find plenty more of the best city-building games on Steam in the meantime to sate all your construction-centric cravings, or sort through the best management games for lots of different ways to test your ability to take charge.
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