The strategy genre has blossomed in recent years with ever more imaginative takes on what being a strategy game means. Upcoming city builder and grand strategy mashup Kaiserpunk is creating something completely new by mixing together the best concepts from several strategy subgenres. What’s more, it has a brand new demo you can play for free. So if you want to stretch your strategy wings, now’s the time.
What immediately sets Kaiserpunk apart is the combination of scales you’ll be operating at. Half the time you’ll be playing a city building game. You’ll manage your metropolis, decide where buildings should be built, expand outwards, and encourage a bustling economy. The other half of the time you’ll zoom right out to a grand strategy view, taking on other nations in a deadly game of diplomacy and war on a global scale. While some games have combined genres, there are few that have managed to put together ideas so diametrically opposed as this, with macro and micro management styles fully on display.
If that wasn’t enough for you as a rich strategy serving, there’s another layer you’ll have to pay attention to in Kaiserpunk and there’s where the comparisons to Frostpunk 2 come in. This isn’t just a game of optimization and number crunching, it’s a game of narratives, of people, and making critical decisions. Kaiserpunk isn’t content for you to build a story of success and failure, like many strategy games, instead there’s a whole narrative engine at play that interweaves throughout the entire game.
Set in an alternate 20th Century universe, the world is spiraling towards war, and as you’ll expect there are plenty of difficult choices to make. Not only will you have to decide the fate of your nation and its people through key narrative moments, you’ll encounter full storylines which build through your campaign. Some of these story events will have limited impact, some will change the direction of your game altogether. Similar to narrative city builders like the Frostpunk series, you’ll have to carefully consider your actions, with the destiny of your nation hanging in the balance.
Also you can be overthrown. So try not to let that happen.
Kaiserpunk has a demo that’s playable for free right now and will run as part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest event which runs from Monday June 10 to Monday June 17. Learn more over on the official game page.
If you’re looking for something else, why not take a look at our best management games guide or our guide to the best grand strategy games.
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