We’re ecstatic to be a part of Steam's Real-Time Strategy Fest, along with a wealth of other amazing RTS games!

Real-Time Strategy games have been around since the early 1990s and we’re honoured to be listed among, and to have played around with, this diverse genre with the Circle Empires series. With Circle Empires 2 on the horizon, we thought it’d be a fun idea to dive into a few RTS games from the past & present that have been a huge inspiration for the Circle Empires series.

Here’s Mikhel Trei, developer at Luminous, on some of his personal favourites:

My favourite RTS games are Warcraft 3, Age of Empires 1 & 2, Total Annihilation, and Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

To me, Warcraft 3 has the best 4-player Free For All mode in any RTS. What makes it so good for me, is the fact that it is reliant on heroes, who gain power by fighting. This provides a unique incentive to engage in battles during Free For All games, which otherwise reward passive play and result in stale games when players play correctly.

Age of Empires 1 and 2 are what I grew up with. I've probably played through AOE1’s Rise of Rome expansion demo campaign a thousand times as a kid, because I didn't have the full version of the game. Age of Empires 2 places you in this incredibly engaging fantasy of being a medieval king and I used to play the 1v7 single-player mode quite a lot.

Total Annihilation is one of the first RTS I ever came across. I remember seeing it at a friend's place and being mesmerised. It has a fantastic unit command system, great 3D spacial physics, a wide array of units and so much more. It did require a beefy computer for its time and it's overall a bit less intuitive than other, non-SciFi RTSs (Just because you're in the future and don't have horses and men with sharp sticks that are self-explanatory). But like.. sea planes that can land underwater and flying builders that create cannons that shoot on the other side of map… This game is just great.

I feel like for Red Alert, all I need to say is: mass teslacoils and air strikes.
Since these are all big titles, I feel like I should mention a few games that, in my opinion, should get more recognition.:

• Knights and Merchants had a really cool economy system. Fans made a complete rebuild of the game called KamRemake.
  
• Beasts and Pumpkins had a cool live economy where people would be born and get old, eat bread, fight each other when they're in bad mood and fight giant bees by throwing rocks over a fence.

Thanks for joining us in this celebration of one of our favourite genres! Check out the other great games in Steam's Real-Time Strategy Fest, and share your favorite RTS titles in the comments!

Happy strategizing!

Luminous

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1100260/Circle_Empires_Rivals/?curator_clanid=1137099

We’re ecstatic to be a part of Steam's Real-Time Strategy Fest, along with a wealth of other amazing RTS games!

Real-Time Strategy games have been around since the early 1990s and we’re honoured to be listed among, and to have played around with, this diverse genre with the Circle Empires series. With Circle Empires 2 on the horizon, we thought it’d be a fun idea to dive into a few RTS games from the past & present that have been a huge inspiration for the Circle Empires series.

Here’s Mikhel Trei, developer at Luminous, on some of his personal favourites:

My favourite RTS games are Warcraft 3, Age of Empires 1 & 2, Total Annihilation, and Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

To me, Warcraft 3 has the best 4-player Free For All mode in any RTS. What makes it so good for me, is the fact that it is reliant on heroes, who gain power by fighting. This provides a unique incentive to engage in battles during Free For All games, which otherwise reward passive play and result in stale games when players play correctly.

Age of Empires 1 and 2 are what I grew up with. I've probably played through AOE1’s Rise of Rome expansion demo campaign a thousand times as a kid, because I didn't have the full version of the game. Age of Empires 2 places you in this incredibly engaging fantasy of being a medieval king and I used to play the 1v7 single-player mode quite a lot.

Total Annihilation is one of the first RTS I ever came across. I remember seeing it at a friend's place and being mesmerised. It has a fantastic unit command system, great 3D spacial physics, a wide array of units and so much more. It did require a beefy computer for its time and it's overall a bit less intuitive than other, non-SciFi RTSs (Just because you're in the future and don't have horses and men with sharp sticks that are self-explanatory). But like.. sea planes that can land underwater and flying builders that create cannons that shoot on the other side of map… This game is just great.

I feel like for Red Alert, all I need to say is: mass teslacoils and air strikes.
Since these are all big titles, I feel like I should mention a few games that, in my opinion, should get more recognition.:

• Knights and Merchants had a really cool economy system. Fans made a complete rebuild of the game called KamRemake.
  
• Beasts and Pumpkins had a cool live economy where people would be born and get old, eat bread, fight each other when they're in bad mood and fight giant bees by throwing rocks over a fence.

Thanks for joining us in this celebration of one of our favourite genres! Check out the other great games in Steam's Real-Time Strategy Fest, and share your favorite RTS titles in the comments!

Happy strategizing!

Luminous

https://store.steampowered.com/app/834740/Circle_Empires/?curator_clanid=1137099

You can now travel to ✨Sprankelwater✨ at a 40% discount during the Steam Daily Deal! If you've been trying to convince your friends, now is your chance!

Also, all citizens of ✨Sprankelwater✨ can now speak fluent Japanese and Traditional Chinese!

Cheers!
Lars (snekflat)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2238040/Tiny_Terrys_Turbo_Trip/

Hey Bosses! It’s been quite some time since we’ve done a playstyle blog, and now that the limited-time game mode Rockay Rumble has been made a permanent fixture in Crime Boss: Rockay City, it seems fitting to do another loadout recommendation.

This guide will differ from those we’ve previously released due to the way Rockay Rumble functions. Those previous blogs can be found here:

“Bag Mule”
“The Tank”
“Going Loud”
“Going Silent”

In Rockay Rumble, you’ll face 15 waves of increasingly difficult enemy gangsters and police, either solo or with a crew of up to 4 players. Their minds are corrupted by a voodoo witch’s black magic, who resides in the swamps beyond the city limits. Defeating enemies rewards upgrade tokens, which can enhance your gear and abilities at the van in the map’s center.

Since your weapons and equipment are unlocked whilst facing the horde, we’ll give you some pointers on which perks to equip beforehand and which upgrades to keep a lookout for at the upgrade van.





You’ll be facing plenty of enemies and are likely to go down more than once, especially on extreme difficulty. Upon revival, your character will emit a shockwave, instantly killing any nearby enemies. Use this strategically during Boss waves against challenging enemies. This perk is a must for solo players unless you’re just that skilled.




In later stages, and especially during Boss waves, enemies will be equipped with serious firepower. Better to be safe than sorry.




Being stationary is a death sentence. Your ability to reload while maintaining a sprint will be a major advantage. Run and shoot, shoot and run.




This is your bread and butter. If you’re not sure what to pick, take one of these. The weapon upgrade applies to all weapons, so if you start with a level 1 melee weapon, the next choice might be a level 2 SMG, then a level 3 rifle, a level 4 shotgun, and so on. Each upgrade gives a sizable damage buff.



If you’re lucky enough to upgrade this a few times and combine it with ‘Swift III,’ the horde has no shot at keeping up with you. Just be sure to stay moving!



When you manage to find a moment of respite, it’ll only be another moment before you’re forced back into the fight. Upgrading your health regeneration will have your wounds healing just as fast as the horde is able to make them.



Choosing this upgrade will spawn an AI teammate to help you in the fight. Often passed over for one of the other upgrades on offer, but extremely handy both solo or with friends, as these gangsters will draw the attention of the horde for some time and take a few down along the way. Fallen AI allies will respawn at the start of each new round.

These suggestions are subjective, and plans crumble quickly when the horde is large, teammates have fallen, and your pick of upgrades is not what you were hoping for.

So, tell us whether our strategy is a winning or losing one and how you like to Rumble in Rockay!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2933080/Crime_Boss_Rockay_City/

Grab your Steam Deck and dive in for the next escape, because Lucky Tower Ultimate is Steam Deck verified!

We’re super excited to reach this milestone, so thanks to everyone for reporting bugs to help us create a better handheld experience.



For this update, we added a lot of safety fallbacks and a whole new backup system to keep your files even safer! For most of you, nothing will actually change, but we did implement a few things to ensure the safety of your progress, so here's a short overview:

Since some people reported crashes or weird behavior when using Alt + F4, we implemented a brand new autosave feature. While you're in the village, the game will create a backup every two minutes. This way, even if your computer crashes, your progress should still be saved.

Your data will now also be saved into a separate daily backup folder. Your most recent save files will be copied into this folder, saving the newest data for the last five consecutive days you've played the game. This is just an additional backup, as long as nothing breaks, you don't need to worry about this folder, but you can use the files to restore your progress if needed!

Before this update, every file was saved in the Steam Cloud, now we're also creating local backups. You don't need to worry about these, it's just an additional safety net. If somehow Steam Cloud messes with your files, you can copy your local files into the proper folder manually and restore what Steam destroyed!

All of these features should help prevent broken or corrupted save files, create regular safety backups, and allow you to manually restore your files in case your computer crashes or Steam Cloud is messing with your files.

Please note, that many people (players and developers alike) have problems with the Steam Cloud sometimes not properly syncing files between different computers. We tried our best to create the best possible backup system for you guys!

If you’ve been enjoying Lucky Tower Ultimate (and haven’t already), please consider reviewing the game on Steam.

Now Asteroids and more Asteroids has new languages so that everyone can destroy asteroids, now with: Japanese, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese.
In addition to fixing some bugs, such as crashes and sudden FPS drops.

Hello everyone,

We’re continuing to update the beta version, and today we’re rolling out the long-awaited walls to the beta channel.

They still need some polishing and adjustments to gameplay, but you can already give them a try. Next week, we’ll teach the AI to construct walls on the map, introduce additional threats to make wall-building more justified, and modify the map’s politics (e.g., reintroducing sudden, unprepared attacks).



For now, you can build wooden walls, defensive towers (which are sturdier than watchtowers), and city gates. The functionality of gates will also be expanded in the future — for example, you’ll be able to regulate migration through gate guard settings.



While developing the walls, we encountered limitations with our current landscape, so we decided to upgrade it to 3D. For now, it’s mostly a decorative feature, but we plan to add gameplay mechanics tied to it (for example, archers will shoot farther from higher positions). The landscape will also be improved artistically — we’ve just hired a new artist to the team.

Before:


Now:


We’re continuing to expand the political system. While we’re still testing the puppet mechanics, we’re now adding the actions Praise and Slander to the local map, which were previously available only on the global map. This opens up even more opportunities for intrigue within your province.

All of this will remain in beta for a week or two. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback and comments on the new mechanics!

* SteamDeck UI fixes
* minor bug fixes

It feels like two minutes since Josef Fares revealed Split Fiction live on stage to the world back in December 2024 at The Game Awards, and here we are, just under 2 months away from the game launching on March 6th.

Today we are excited to share our “Road to Launch” road map to give you an idea of what we have planned for you before you get your hands on the game.




We hope you will enjoy everything we have planned for you above, and we’ll have PC specific news coming as well before launch. Come March 6, we can’t wait to see the incredible things our community can do with the game - sharing your gameplay clips, cosplay attempts and amazing fan art!



Looking for a place to chat about Split Fiction? Join the Hazelight Discord and get involved with the community! Make sure to also follow Hazelight on both X and Instagram social channels to see more aspects of the game showcased ahead of launch



https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001120/Split_Fiction/

KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS is pleased to announce that the 2025: DEATH STRANDING Annual Photo Mode Campaign has begun!

Last year, over 10,000 creative photos were shared throughout the campaign. Many thanks to all the Porters out there who participated. Your photos inspire us and our community!

It’s through this campaign we see many connections made across our community so we would like to show our continued support by going a little bigger this year.

Every month, KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS will announce a unique photo theme where Porters can share and submit their photos: 20 photos will then be selected each month. From those 20 selected photos, KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS staff will select one “Photo of the Month” winner each month.

At the end of the calendar year, the 12 “Photo of the Month” photos will then be featured as the cover for each month on the 2026 KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS calendar. This calendar will be sent to the Photo of the Month winners as a prize.

Also introduced this year is the new “Photo of the Year Award”, Hideo Kojima will select the top photo from the 12 “Photo of the month” photos!

We look forward to seeing your photo entries!

Campaign dates: Jan 22, 2025, through until mid-December 2025

• January’s Theme: Vehicle
  
• Submission period: January 22, 2025 〜 February 10, 2025 .
  
• Hashtag #DSPhotomodeCP_Jan , #DeathStranding

February’s Theme: To be released at a later date.

The following rules will apply for this Photo Mode campaign.

• Please turn off the UI when taking your picture (Photo Mode menu settings).
  
• Do not use frames and logos when taking your picture (Photo Mode menu settings).
  
• Do not use other apps to edit the pictures other than the ones in the game’s Photo Mode.
  
• Please submit your own photos(Submission will be invalid if you apply using other people’s pictures).
  
• If you are capturing it vertically (i.e. portrait), go to the Roll menu and change the settings to tilt it 90° or -90° beforehand.
  
• We recommend an aspect ratio of 16:9 (9:16 if vertical).
  
• The works selected in the top 10 and “Photo of the Month” may be used on KOJIMA PRODUCTION's website and social media channels.
  
• Please save the image data. *

*Please note that for the purpose of printing out the calendar, we may request that you provide the original file. (Image files are compressed when uploaded to social media)



「Photo of the month」 12 people
Prize：DEATH STRANDING original calendar
　　「2026 DEATH STRANDING Photo mode Campaign Calendar」

「Photo of the year 2025」 1 person
Prize：
・DEATH STRANDING original calendar*
　「2026 DEATH STRANDING Photo mode Campaign Calendar」
・Original goods*
・We will make the photos into B2 posters and display them in the KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS office.
*Details of some of the prizes will be announced at a later date.
*The “Photo of the Year 2025” calendar and goods will be signed by Hideo Kojima.
*The prizes will be sent out in mid-January 2026.

• Follow the official KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS account on the SNS you are applying through
  X users:@KOJIPRO2015
  Instagram users: @kojipro2015_official
  Steam users: Here in the comments!
  
• Use the in-game photo mode to take a photo that fits the theme.
  
• Post your entry to your own X or Instagram or Steam account, including the entry hashtag for each month. (Example) Entry for the January theme: [#DSPhotomodeCP_Jan] +[#DeathStranding]
  
• The announcement of the winning entries will be made on the KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS official SNS and official website.
  
• Please also refer to the video below for information on how to take photos in photo mode.

• You must be 18 or older to participate in this campaign.
  
• If you change or delete your X (formerly Twitter) /Instagram account name, your right to win will be voided.
  
• This campaign is not provided or sponsored by X/Instagram Corp. (formerly Twitter)
  
• Participants shall comply with the terms of use set forth by X/Meta Corp. and shall participate in this campaign at their own risk. Please note that we are not responsible for any account restrictions or bans resulting from participating in this campaign.
  
• Please note that this campaign may be cancelled or the contents or prizes may change without prior notice.
  
• We cannot answer any inquires regarding the status of entries or voting results.
  
• The right to win and prizes are the sole property of the winner and may not be transferred, resold, or redeemed for cash to family, friends, or others.
  
• Only one prize can be sent to the same address.
  
• If you do not register your shipping address information or the information provided is insufficient, your right to win will be voided.
  
• There may be delays in shipment due to delivery destinations, logistical issues, weather conditions, not being present during delivery, etc.
  
• If the prize cannot be delivered to unknown address issues, long-term absences etc., your right to win may be voided.
  
• Internet communication and connection fees are the participants’ responsibilities. We are not responsible for any connectivity issues that may occur.