Early access for many games these days is standard, but it’s still exciting when the developers call the time and announce that the creation is finished. Huge titles like Hades, Baldur’s Gate 3, Um, and Hades 2 benefit from close collusion with players during their respective development periods. This allows players to get information about design decisions and provides developers with a much broader group of playtesters and funding to continue production. One such early access game that we’ve looked at over the past few years is The farthest frontierI will launch v1.0 next month.
The farthest frontier is a twisted city building game. In addition to traditional mechanisms such as population management and tavern construction, the farthest frontiers lean towards survival mechanisms and agricultural SIM elements to create more subtle games.
The game focuses on rough details at the core that others overlook. If you like the crispy mechanics such as growing 12 different crops to grow or building 190 different buildings, this could be the game for you. Build towns from humble settlements to bustling metropolitan cities, repelling invaders with stone walls and populations resisting the old-fashioned illness that threaten your quiet existence.
The V1.0 update promises a major upgrade to early access games. The developers hope to turn it into “market outstanding agricultural sims and medieval city builders/managers.” There are new high-tech trees, from 142 different options to choose from, more policies, updated animations, numerous additional buildings, and even bridges. Yes, you can cross the running water in October.
The furthest frontier has been accessing early for over three years at this point, and developers’ Crate Entertainment has teased the full release with major updates over the years. Meanwhile, the game has collected over 20,000 steam reviews, 86% of which are positive. Players praise survival mechanics and focus on the harsh reality of fighting nature when building a town from scratch.
The farthest frontier will be released on Steam on Thursday, October 23rd for $34.99/£29.50. You can download it here.
If you don’t want to dip your toes early, check out the best survival games picks here. Alternatively, the best architecture games give the frantic frontier experience similarity while waiting for October.
If you want to mess with your thumbs instead, our community’s mismatched servers are full of friendly faces, including readers and staff, and we can promise that you are completely free of medieval illnesses.
