Romestead has arrived in Steam Early Access, backed by Beartwigs and publisher Three Friends, a team that includes veterans responsible for games like Valheim, Minecraft, and Deep Rock Galactic. Given that the game gathered over 300,000 wishlists before its release and finished among the top 10 most played demos at Steam Next Fest in February, it's clear we are not the only ones who often think about the Roman Empire.
In Romestead, you take on the task of restoring the ancient Roman Empire after its fall. Alone or with up to seven friends, you will build settlements, gather resources, rescue survivors, construct roads and buildings, and fight against mythical beasts that have decided that now is the perfect time for an invasion. Because obviously, the barbarians were no longer enough.
But this is not just a classic survival game. As you develop your settlement, you need to earn the favor of the Roman gods through sacrifices and heroic deeds. It’s never a bad idea to have Jupiter on your side when a massive monster stands before your city.
Early Access also brings a lot of new content compared to the demo. There’s a completely new volcanic biome with additional dungeons and bosses, new resident professions like carpenters who automate part of the construction, trading posts for automatic transportation of resources between settlements, and a new decorating system that allows you to arrange your Roman village without endlessly rummaging through your inventory.
One of the more interesting aspects is the design philosophy. The developers want to keep the fun elements of the survival genre while eliminating the reasons you often want to quit the game. There’s no tool and weapon degradation, less micromanagement, and inventory systems have been simplified so you can spend more time exploring the world and less time organizing wood in chests like a Roman warehouseman. Because of this, I stopped playing CoreKeeper after 30 hours.
Visually, Romestead uses a pixel art style, but beneath it lies a quite ambitious survival town builder that combines city building, exploration, combat, and co-op gameplay. If you’ve ever wanted to see what Valheim would look like set in the Roman Empire, with a few more roads and a few less Vikings, this could be a title worth following.
And yes, after this, you will probably think about the Roman Empire even more often. Just this time, you’ll be thinking about where to place a sawmill and where to build a temple to Jupiter.
