One of my favorite survival city builders is leaving early access this month, so here’s your chance to buy it before the price goes up
September sure was chock full o’ city builders, but wait, there’s more! October has a treat in store for all you aspiring mayors, too: survival city builder Farthest Frontier is busting out of early access and going full version 1.0 later this month.
This is excellent news for two reasons. First, even from its earliest days of early access, Farthest Frontier felt pretty darn complete. I played a ton of it in 2022, turning my struggling medieval town into a profitable city thanks to investing heavily in bees—only to have my waxy fortune stolen by bandits in a suspiciously well-timed heist.
Farthest Frontier also has a surprisingly deep farming system involving crop rotation and soil fertility, seasonal weather that will have you dreading those bitter and dangerous winters, and a whole host of horrible diseases and afflictions your settlers will have to contend with, like dysentery, scurvy, typhoid, cholera, frostbite, rabies, and even the plague.
My townsfolk had an outbreak of worms at one point, which is utterly gross. I even had issues with villagers needing treatment for bee stings because I’d built so many apiaries around the neighborhood. That’s a deep simulation.
The other bit of good news: while the price of Farthest Frontier is going up with the 1.0 launch (from $30 to $35), that’s not happening immediately, so there’s still time to buy it at the early access price. And that lower price is even lower right now, because the city builder is on sale for 25% off until October 6.
So, if you’re interested in a great medieval-inspired survival city builder, you can get it now for about $22.50 instead of for $35, as it will be priced when it leaves early access on October 23.
The 1.0 launch is bringing some big changes with it, according to developer Crate Entertainment:
- Revamped progression with new 142-point Tech Tree, giving players more freedom
- Dozens of new buildings
- Bridges
- New Policy System
- Updated animations
I asked for some details about the new policy system, and here’s how production director Kamil Marczewski explained it:
“The new policy system allows players to have more granular control over their villagers’ lives by introducing togglable policies that provide various benefits, but with trade-offs, such as increasing the yields from farms by overseeding, but at the cost of greater drain on the soil’s fertility, or reducing the cost of soldier recruitment at the cost of villager happiness.”
By the way, Crate Entertainment is also the maker of outstanding ARPG Grim Dawn—which itself is on sale for 85% off at the moment, meaning you can nab it for under four bucks.
