Games like Kenshi, Mount & Blade, Starsector, STALKER (the original trilogy), Drox Operative.

The idea is a world/universe full of NPCs just going about their own lives, but not just on the surface level to make the world appear alive. There’s an actual deep simulation going on so that however I (or other NPCs) interact with the world and the characters, it has consequences that might be difficult to predict.

E.g. raiding caravans impact the economies of connected cities, resulting in the cities becoming vulnerable to invading armies; autonomous factions pursuing their own goals, forming alliances with each other and conquering cities; NPCs seek vulnerable targets, while trying to avoid dangerous parties; etc.

The number is thin. But there’s a niche to this kind of game. I find it a bit difficult to name this kind of gameplay due to the lack of name to call it. Whereas “roguelite” or “Souls-lite”, there’s some sort of agreement how the …

Edit for clarity: these numbers are from a study I put together from public Steam data. The ~7,000 in the title are all games in Early Access on Steam right now that have Steam’s “no update in over a year” note, most of them tiny games with almost no reviews. The chart is something else: what happened to the 10,141 bigger games (10+ reviews) that entered EA between 2013 and 2023. Most of those reached 1.0 and left Early Access, which is exactly why the store shelf looks so much worse than the outcomes.

Early Access is a subject that moves people’s emotions, so I wanted to check what actually happens to these games. Mostly the numbers matched what I assumed. The one thing I did not expect is that the majority actually get finished.

- On 26 September 2026, 6,989 of the 12,320 Early Access games on Steam carried Steam’s own note that the developers’ last update was over a year ago.

- Of the 10,141 games with at least 10 reviews that entered Early …

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1620730/Hell_is_Us/

New content

• 10 new Hollow Walkers to encounter on your journey through Hadea.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a memory corruption issue affecting the save system.
• Fixed several collision issues across different maps that could leave players stuck.
• Fixed various other bugs.