You promised not to touch pensions. The debt says otherwise. Lead one of 200 real countries, alone or with friends: push your laws through parliament, face the streets, ride out global crises. Every number has a reason, and every decision has a price.

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Coming Soon To Early Access

The developers of this game intend to release as a work in progress, developing with the feedback of players.

Note: Games in Early Access are 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?

“PREEMINENCE simulates the economy and politics of more than 200 countries, and we publish every equation of its model so that it can be challenged. A model like this cannot be balanced behind closed doors. It needs players governing countries we have not tested, finding results that look wrong, and telling us what is fun and what is not. Early Access lets us build the big systems still missing with you, instead of shipping them all at once with no feedback.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We plan on about two years. This will depend on your feedback and on how the systems described below progress.”

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

“The Early Access version lays the groundwork: each country's economy, budget, taxes, debt, demographics, wars, elections and government. We plan to keep building on it throughout Early Access, without changing what the game is.

Here is what we plan to work on:

- Connecting countries: trade, exchange rates and diplomacy
- A deeper economic model: education and research, and how they shape long-term growth
- More content: more events, more laws to pass, and more data specific to each country
- A smoother experience: a clearer interface, in-game help, and balancing tuned with your feedback
- More stable multiplayer, and more of the game's data opened up to mods

The model's documentation is public: every equation is written out and sourced, and we plan to keep it up to date as the game evolves. Priorities may change based on community feedback.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The Early Access version contains:
- more than 200 real countries, with their data as of early 2026;
- an economy that runs day by day: growth, inflation, unemployment, central bank, budget, debt, debt crisis and default;
- online multiplayer, each player running a country
- trade between countries, through which recessions and recoveries spread;
- an army to pay for, wars and conquest, with what they cost the budget, the debt and public opinion;
- many laws and reforms to get through a parliament where each party decides its own vote, with coalitions, divided government and dissolution;
- a wide range of taxes set by their rates and a budget to share out line by line;
- social groups that judge, vote, protest and riot;
- a government to build from political figures, meetings, ministers who push for their budget, resignations, no-confidence motions and scandals;
- election campaigns, debates, promises and election night;
- pandemics, disasters and food crises to respond to;
- saved games, and an interface in several languages.

Balancing is in progress: provisional settings are marked as such in the public reference of the model.”

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

“We plan to raise the price as major systems are added.”

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

“The model is public: every equation, every parameter and its source can be read and challenged. We read the Steam forums, and a useful report tells us the country, the date, the value you saw and the one you expected. The settings marked "choice" in the reference are where your opinion will weigh most. Every change to the model is published in a changelog, with its reason.”
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This game is not yet available on Steam

Planned Release Date: Q1 2027

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About This Game

Welcome to office.

Debt has passed 110% of GDP. Cut pensions? Pensioners will be marching before the bill is even voted. Raise income tax? The middle class will remember at the ballot box. Do nothing? The debt crisis will decide for you.

Pick one of more than 200 real countries, as it stands on 1 January 2026, and govern it day by day. The clock is running. Pause it to think, start it again when it's time to decide. On the 1st of every month the statistics office publishes its figures, and you find out what your decisions have done.

Run the economy

Set the central bank's rate, write the budget line by line, move each tax by its rate. Growth, inflation and unemployment answer months later, not the next day. Borrow for too long and the markets stop lending.

Build your government

Ten posts to fill. In every party, around fifteen political figures, each with a face, a speciality and an opinion of you. Offer a ministry: you see the chance they accept, and they can say no. A partner that got its share votes your bills more willingly. One you overlook gets harder to deal with. And a post left empty for too long costs you every month.

Meet them face to face

Open the calendar and set up a meeting. Choose your tone, ask for a party's support, apply pressure, promise a post. What you say changes what they think of you.

Your ministers have ideas of their own

Hand a ministry over to its minister, and they will come to cabinet asking for a bigger budget. Finance wants savings. You settle it, or you let Finance answer.

Your government can fall

An unhappy minister resigns. A partner leaves the coalition. Parliament prepares a no-confidence motion. You get a month's warning: that is the time you have left to hold them back. A scandal gives no warning.

Get your laws through parliament

Every reform goes before a parliament where each party votes by its convictions, not your wishes. Build a coalition, endure a divided government, dissolve parliament if you're feeling lucky. A rejected bill is a month lost, and your opponents know it.

The street won't wait

Pensioners, low-income households, the young, rural voters: each knows exactly what you are taking from them. Announce a cut, and those it hits take to the streets that same day. Let the anger build, and protests turn into riots.

So what do you do? Give in, and lose face. Meet the leaders, and buy time. Crack down, and pay for it in the polls. Or do nothing, and wait for them to get used to it.

Every promise is a debt

The campaign is on. Take the stage, face your rivals in debate, promise a VAT cut or higher pensions. Voters will believe you, for a while. Break a promise, and they will make you pay. On election night the results climb on screen, and the country decides.

A country that ages

Every 1 January your population is a year older. Retirees multiply, workers get scarcer, and the pension bill follows. Raise the retirement age, change how pensions are uprated, open or close the door to immigration: these laws take ten or twenty years to pay off, and the voters they hurt are here today.

One world, one economy

Your exports are someone else's imports: when your biggest customer falls into recession, your factories feel it at once. When your economy overheats, your neighbours buy less from you and sell you more. A pandemic, El Niño, an earthquake, a food price spike: crises travel with trade. When one hits your country, you have a month to respond: lock down, rebuild, send aid.

Meanwhile, two hundred other governments live their own lives. They reform, borrow, fall and default, and what happens to them reaches you through trade.

Go to war, if you can afford it

Raise an army and pay for it. Declare war, take territory, make your country bigger. But conquest is paid for at home: defence weighs on the budget, debt climbs, and when the conflict drags on, public opinion tires and the street joins in. Your neighbours have armies too.

Play together, on the same planet

Start a game and invite your friends. Each takes a country; the rest of the world runs itself. One clock for everyone, and anyone can pause to think. Your recession becomes their problem, their growth becomes your opportunity. Cooperate, compete, or just watch who defaults first.

No black box

In most games of this kind, numbers move and nobody knows why. Here, every equation of the model is public: its parameters, its sources, and what it simplifies. Inflation is climbing? You can find out why. Think the model is wrong? Prove it.

Features

  • More than 200 real countries, with their economic data, population and institutions
  • An economy that runs day by day: growth, inflation, unemployment, a central bank rate to set, debt crises and defaults
  • Fifteen tax rates to set, and a budget to share out line by line
  • Who pays, who receives: income tax brackets, social benefits set one by one, unemployment insurance, minimum pension, separate VAT rates for food, energy and medicines
  • A government to build: ten posts, around fifteen political figures per party, each with an opinion of you
  • Face-to-face meetings to persuade, apply pressure or promise a post
  • Ministers who push for their ministry, and a cabinet meeting where you settle it
  • Resignations, partners walking out, no-confidence motions, scandals
  • A parliament that votes, coalitions, divided government, dissolution
  • Election campaigns, debates, promises you will have to keep, and election night
  • Social groups that judge, vote, protest, riot, and eventually get used to it
  • An ageing population, with pension and long-term care laws whose effects take decades
  • Migration between countries, immigration and asylum laws, and a migration map
  • Long-term growth driven by investment, workforce and productivity
  • Pandemics, natural disasters and food crises, and your responses
  • A connected world economy: trade between countries, recessions and recoveries that spread
  • An army to pay for, wars to fight and territory to conquer
  • Multiplayer: each player runs a country in the same shared world
  • Statistics published every month, and a tab to compare the whole world at a glance
  • A relief map of the world, from countries down to regions and districts

Fictional parties, leaders and figures; real countries and real numbers.

Add PREEMINENCE to your wishlist and follow its development.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

An AI assistant helped collect, check and format the real-world data the game starts from (economy, population, public finances, elections), using public sources such as the World Bank, the United Nations and the Penn World Table. It also helped write some in-game text and the English, Spanish and German translations. Everything it produced was reviewed by the developer before going into the game. Every source is credited in the game and listed in the public documentation, and values that had to be estimated are marked as such. No content is generated by AI while the game is running.

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
    • Processor: Quad-core, Intel Core i5-6600 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: 2 GB VRAM (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 or AMD Radeon RX 560)
    • DirectX: Version 12
    • Storage: 2 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX compatible
    Recommended:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit)
    • Processor: Quad-core, Intel Core i5-7500 or AMD Ryzen 5 1500X
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Graphics: 4 GB VRAM (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 570)
    • DirectX: Version 12
    • Storage: 2 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX compatible
    • Additional Notes: SSD recommended
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