Stray Fawn’s The Wandering Village – a city building sim set on the back of a giant, roaming creature – will be launching into Steam early access next Wednesday, 14th September.
Announced last August, The Wandering Village tasks players with constructing a safe haven for a group of survivors in a dangerous, post-apocalyptic world. Its city building aspects might be familiar, but those are combined with resource management, rogue-like elements, and survival, all connected to the ever-moving creature, known as Onbu, the survivors now call home.
“Forging a relationship between the villagers and Onbu might be challenging at times, as their interests often don’t align,” Stray Fawn explains. “As a living creature, its unique body poses its own challenges for your village design. There’s every chance a spike may have grown where villagers intended to place their kitchen, while a failed harvest may cause desperation and tempt villagers to draw blood from the creature for food.”
The goal, then, is one of constant adaptation in order to keep the village thriving as the creature travels from from biome to biome, each bringing its own unique opportunities and challenges. Players might want to send out scouts and foragers to retrieve rare resources and ancient technologies, for instance, to be better equipped against poisonous spores, merciless weather, bloodsucking parasites, and more.
Stray Fawn says The Wandering Village will launch into Steam early access with most key mechanics – building, farming, scavenging, research, scouting, and giving commands to Onbu – all in place. However, it notes that while the launch version forms an enjoyable gameplay loop, it’s “still a bit bare-bones, lacking content and polish”.
Those issues should be addressed as early access – which is expected to last for at least a year – continues, with Stray Fawn also exploring more new features, including trading with merchants, new building types, new biomes, and new events.
If your interest is sufficiently piqued, The Wandering Village will cost $24.99 USD when it launches on Steam next Wednesday, 14th September. An Xbox Game Preview version will arrive in 2023.
