Fallout is a bleak, brutal world where pockets of survivors scrape together a living in a harsh nuclear wasteland. Cities Skylines, meanwhile, is a pretty optimistic vision of modern life, as you design and cultivate the ideal metropolis and try to make life as perfect as possible for your population. But a new city-builder-themed Steam strategy game successfully manages to push the two together, mixing the dystopian visions of Fallout 4 and New Vegas with cerebral top-down management of Cities Skylines. Welcome to Homeseek: Fallout combined with Frostpunk, Civilization, and the upcoming Cities Skylines 2.
It’s the future, and everything has gone wrong. Drinkable water has run out, and it’s your job to lead a ragtag bunch of survivors to a new, livable settlement. Across two campaigns, nine scenarios, and online multiplayer, Homeseek challenges you to carefully manage and monitor how you expand your apocalyptic refuge. Expand too quickly, and you’ll drain all the precious remaining resources. Without proper planning, and choosing the right places to build and harvest, you’re all finished.
As you survive, you develop more knowledge, research, and tools. Dynamic story events can provide either benefits or obstacles. In some cases, you might find that disharmony and resentment break out among your survivors, contributing to the possible collapse of your entire city.
Other times, completing quests and assignments can boost your chances of survival. Compared to a lot of city-building games, in Homeseek the objective is not mass expansion or idyllic, urban efficiency. It’s gruelling, sparse, and day-to-day – everything is life or death, down to the most minute decisions.
That’s especially true in the multiplayer, where you compete with other players to obtain resources and build the most dominant settlement. Steal their food, sabotage their buildings, and attack their people – it’s a cruel, apocalyptic nightmare. If you want to try Homeseek, there’s a free demo. You can also go straight to the full game, which launched Thursday, July 20, right here.
Alternatively, try out some of the other best management games. You might also want to know the latest on the Cities Skylines 2 release date, and when we can expect the Colossal Order sequel.