Build a civilization of real people, working together to advance society and stop a meteor, all without destroying the ecosystem in the process.
Recent Reviews:
Mostly Positive (86) - 77% of the 86 user reviews in the last 30 days are positive.
All Reviews:
Very Positive (9,751) - 82% of the 9,751 user reviews for this game are positive.
Release Date:
Feb 6, 2018
Developer:
Publisher:

Sign in to add this item to your wishlist, follow it, or mark it as ignored

Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“Eco is a community-based game; the players develop laws, government, and an economy to determine the success of their world. We need extensive playtesting to get the balance of our core features just right. Early Access is the perfect fit for finding an audience for this while also funding additional development.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We intend Eco to be a forever-game, growing in depth and breadth and connections to other future games, a system of unlimited possibilities that aims to go beyond entertainment.

That's why we aim for a continuous development of Eco even after leaving Early Access. In it's current state the game already has lots of content available and is in a very playable state, but there is still issues we need to fix, things we need to polish, features from our Eco Tree we want to introduce and feedback from our community that we want to implement.

We plan to leave Early Access once the foundation for our vision of Eco Infinite is implemented and our team and community are convinced that the game is ready for this step.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“The full version of Eco will contain complete versions of the following:

  • A fully fleshed out and balanced tech tree
  • A player-enforced law and governance system
  • Community mod support and API

Of course, a large bulk of the improvements will come from balancing the existing core mechanics.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Eco completed a successful Kickstarter in 2015 and has been in development for five years since then. It was available to play as public alpha as of 2016 and as Early Access (beta) as of 2018.

The game is fully playable and contains the following features:

  • Online multiplayer
  • Single player
  • A server package for players to host and run their own games
  • Procedurally generated worlds
  • Over 30 different craft tables, with hundreds of recipes
  • A simulated ecosystem with dozens of unique species
  • Driveable Vehicles
  • Player-run economies and trade systems
  • A nutrition system where players must manage their caloric intake
  • A quest-like contract system where players can create tasks and missions for other players
  • A programmable law system where players can propose and vote on allowable actions in their world
  • A web interface to view simulation data from the worlds that you play on

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“Price will not change after leaving Early Access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We engage with the community in several places: On Steam forums, Reddit, our community forums, Discord, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Most actively, we engage on our public discord, where the development team talks directly with the community to discuss ideas, bugs, and solutions. We solicit feedback actively and engage directly with players. We also share source code with our dev-tier backers who can contribute.”
Read more

Buy Eco

SPECIAL PROMOTION! Offer ends March 21

-20%
$29.99
$23.99
 
See all discussions

Report bugs and leave feedback for this game on the discussion boards

Reviews

“Number 1 game of the year...Eco is a revelation...it made me realize that games are actually crucial for understanding our relationship to all kinds of natural and man-made systems. The thing that gives me chills is that I think it is only in games that we can play with economic systems. And I walked away from my experience in Eco feeling like I learned so much even though we had no instructor. No one was connecting the dots for us. We simply learned through play.”
Jeff Grubb, Venture Beat

Join our Discord

About This Game


Enter the world of Eco, a fully simulated ecosystem bustling with thousands of growing plants and animals living their lives. Build, harvest, and take resources from an environment where your every action affects the world around you. An imminent meteor strike threatens global destruction. Can you save the world without destroying it in the process?



Construct buildings and towns, tend to your farm, hunt wildlife, build infrastructure and transportation, craft clothing, build power plants, and research new technologies. Specialize in a craft and trade your goods to other players. Develop your civilization and sculpt your planet.



As your civilization grows, you’ll need to analyze data from the simulation; evaluating the impact you have on your world. Use this data as evidence in proposed laws, restricting harmful activities without disrupting the advancement of technology. Balance your individual needs with the needs of community, all while maintaining the state of the ecosystem. The future of your world is in your hands.


Every organism in Eco exists as part of a detailed simulation; a disruption in one species can have cascading effects across the planet. Chop down all the trees, and habitats for creatures will be destroyed. Pollute the rivers with mining waste, and your farms will become poisoned and die. The ecosystem supplies the resources you and your community will need to stop the meteor. Manage your pollution, mining waste, hunting, and resource collection to balance your effect on this system.



Eco is built on a rich ecological simulation. All the data generated from the interaction of plants, animals, climate, and players can be searched and analyzed using in-game graphs and heat-maps. Use the collected information as scientific evidence support to proposed laws. The ability to successfully debate using scientific evidence is your greatest weapon against the destruction of your world.



Establish and maintain your own set of laws and government, which are enforced automatically by the game. Draft a proposal to limit clear-cutting in a protected forest, incentivize green energy solutions over fossil fuels by providing tax subsidies and penalties. Participate in elections for world leadership, allowing you to set tax rates and allocate community money. Use a programmable law system to make dynamic and flexible rules for the community, passing them by vote. Construct a wide variety of governments; from tightly-regulated dictator-states, to tax-and-spend subsidy programs, or even lawless communities relying on trust.



Your skills increase based on your food and shelter. By consuming a highly nutritious variety of food and building an elaborate home you will rapidly increase your skill points. Skill points can be spent on skills like farming, hunting, trade, engineering, research, and more. Contribute to the greater good while increasing your own personal success.



In the player-run economy, you achieve the most when you specialize and trade both goods and services. Create stores to buy and sell goods you need asynchronously with other players. Setup contracts within the game’s quest-like labor market, soliciting other players to perform specialized work for you in exchange for payment. Build complex crafting machines and charge a fee for players to use them. A thriving economy in Eco can be both a powerful tool for progress, or a dangerous threat to the environment.

To grease the wheels of commerce, you can create your own currencies, backed by fiat or by resources. Manage the value of your currency relative to others by setting exchange rates at asynchronous currency exchanges. Sell items at stores and collect credit from other players. Eco is designed for rich asynchronous play, allowing many players of many disciplines to contribute to one another’s goals at separate or simultaneous times.



All of the world’s resources originate from its environment, which is affected by your actions. While a meteor looms over head — set to strike the planet in thirty days — a more subtle threat grows from player-interaction with the environment. Without careful attention, ecological destruction can destroy civilization before the meteor even strikes. To ultimately succeed, you and your community will need to use the tools of government and economy to find a balance between progress and protection.

Included Features
  • Online Multiplayer - Collaborate online with a community of players.
  • Local Singleplayer - Build your own world, with the option to invite friends.
  • Dedicated Server Included - Host your own Eco worlds.
  • Over 30 different craft tables, with hundreds of recipes.
  • Hundreds of items, skills, craft tables, and building blocks.
  • A simulated ecosystem with dozens of unique species.
  • With limited carrying capacity, players must create vehicles and networks of roads to transport materials.
  • Create your own backed or fiat currencies, using them as a means of exchange in the economy.
  • Build stores where you can sell your excess items for a profit.
  • Eat varied and nutritious food and build ever larger homes to increase your skills.
  • Create contracts for jobs that you would like players with different skill-specialties to accomplish for you. Take on contracts from other players that need the skills you possess.
  • Design laws using programmable template system to protect your world or increase your profits, enforced by the game if ratified by the population.
  • Run for election and make decisions that affect the globe.
  • View and compile rich data from the simulation and use it to argue for group decisions.
  • Claim land as your own property, and share access rights.
  • Give and remove reputation from other players.
  • Find a balance between progress and protection, between individual needs and those of the group, succeeding or failing together.


Eco is our forever project. We plan to keep growing, expanding, and improving it with the support of the community. Follow our plans and progress through the Eco Tree, which displays in-depth details on current and future features. The Eco Tree can be found on Eco's official website.

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10 64-Bit or newer
    • Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5 GHz Quad-Core or Intel i5-6500 3.2 GHz Quad-Core or similar
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 290 or NVIDIA GTX 970 or similar (Minimum: 4 GB VRAM)
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 4 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX®-Compatible
    • Additional Notes: Translations included in the game are made by our community on Crowdin, only the english language is official and made by us. Only languages that cover at least 80% of the strings in acceptable quality are marked as available here on Steam, but there are more than these available in the game.
    Recommended:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10 64-Bit or newer
    • Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz Eight-Core or Intel Core i7 9700K 3.6 GHz Eight-Core or similar
    • Memory: 16 GB RAM
    • Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 5700 or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 or similar (Recommended: 8 GB VRAM)
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 8 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX®-Compatible

What Curators Say

170 Curators have reviewed this product. Click here to see them.

Customer reviews

Review Type


Purchase Type


Language


Date Range
To view reviews within a date range, please click and drag a selection on a graph above or click on a specific bar.

Show graph



Playtime
Filter reviews by the user's playtime when the review was written:




No minimum to No maximum
Display As:
Show graph
 
Hide graph
 
Filters
Excluding Off-topic Review Activity
Playtime:
There are no more reviews that match the filters set above
Adjust the filters above to see other reviews
Loading reviews...