Steampunk zombiefest RTS They Are Billions may not have a campaign yet (it’s coming), but I reckon this latest early access update might be more important in the long run. Released yesterday, developers Numantian Games rolled out their Steam Workshop-integrated editor after a couple weeks of testing. Players can build scenarios both hand-crafted or procedural, with custom rules, complex scripting and new victory conditions. They also released a new official challenge scenario – even with reinforcements, can you finish your defences when the horde is only 50 days away?

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We’ve just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It’s a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you’ll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.

2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets. (more…)

Set amidst a 22nd century rabies-like outbreak of Zed-ism, They Are Billions is a game about keeping your steampunk settlement alive while raiding zombie towns… and dealing with the repercussions. You manage everything from gold to oil as you handle a Left 4 Starcraft situation wherein zombies keep trying to pick off the citizens — first in smaller numbers and then in screen-collapsing hordes. The game, which is still in Early Access, has just unveiled The Six Wonders: a set of end-game level structures that, if you can acquire the resources necessary to create, will greatly tip the odds in your favor.

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They may be billions, but so so far it’s only taken a few dozen zombies to break through my defences in tower defence/RTS hybrid They Are Billions. That’s a shame, because if I was any better then I’d love to take part in the weekly challenge run that was included in Friday’s early access update. Every week you get one chance to take a stab at the same survival map as everyone else, then compare your score with strangers and friends.

Also added in the update are waypoint commands for units, a sprinkling of (habitable!) abandoned towers, and transportable explosive barrels – three things that every apocalyptic scenario can’t be complete without.

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Well sound the klaxons, unfurl the flags, hoist your main-braces and petards whatever they may be, 2018 is proving far more interesting for charting Steam games. Of course we can’t escape the three usual suspects, but beyond those this is quite the collection of interesting, independent, and novel games. (more…)

Sorry to frighten the more sensitive reader, but, goodness me, among the miserably common entries, this week’s chart welcomes a fair few newbies and indies! Are customers about to get better at buying? Or will we just see these games in the charts every week for the rest of the year? STAY TUNED! (more…)

As the feedback loop of Steam successes reaches an ear-shattering scream, this week we see last year’s best sellers dominating the New Year’s first week. So I refuse to live in the past. Let’s look forward. Let’s imagine what we might want from these behemothic developers. (more…)

Premature Evaluation is the weekly column in which we explore the wilds of early access. For the first foray of 2018, Fraser s been trying to save humanity from hordes of peckish zombies and other undead beasties in survival RTS They Are Billions. It s a classic New Year tradition from a simpler time. >

They Are Billions, at first glance, looks like it might have been the result of a night of video game Mad Libs. It s a survival strategy game with hints of tower defence, a steampunk aesthetic and waves of zombie enemies. It’s a grab bag of video game tropes and genres slammed together that suggest there might be clumsiness in the way the whole thing hangs together. Thankfully, once the undead hordes start pounding at the gates, that suggestion is eradicated. And so, quite often, is humanity.

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Video games certainly went za-za for zombies a few years back, during a time when we could kinda sorta still daydream that the annihilation of the human race won’t be caused by greed and hubris, but that’s no reason to discount every game with zombies in it. Look at They Are Billions, an interesting-looking real-time strategy game which sends thousands of the shambling devils against you and your steampunk settlements. It launched into early access last week and slammed right into Steam’s top 10, which is quite an accomplishment. Go on, let’s have a peek. (more…)

Ho ho hello readers! It’s Father Christmas here! I hope you’ve all been good boys and girls this year! Now, let me see, what have you all been wishing for? Goodness gracious, it’s all PC games! Well, I wouldn’t know much about those I suppose, but let’s have a look… (more…)