Romestead is currently one of the 15 most played demos on Steam, but what’s behind this building game? Glad you asked.
It’s actually surprising that we can’t pave the streets with Roman games yet, since according to TikTok, we’re constantly thinking about the splendor and glory of the Roman Empire. However, there’s not much of that left in the new Steam crowd favorite Romestead. Some plague—probably Skibidi Toilet—has ravaged Rome, and now I have to rebuild it.
Romestead is one of the 15 most played demos of the entire event in the current Steam Next Fest because it ticks pretty much all the boxes on the trend bingo card: survival, building, dungeon crawling, farming, a bit of role-playing and, as I said, Rome.
And after a few hours of playing the demo, I can at least say that this could turn into a pretty cool new game.
What’s going on in Romestead?
The story of Romestead doesn’t go much beyond what I’ve already summarized above. In theory, goddesses and gods from the Roman pantheon are also involved. An anonymous goddess (definitely not Minerva) is wandering around my base, but so far, the game is mainly a sandbox with an ancient twist.
From a top-down view, I move my little Roman male or female character through a procedurally generated pixel world and, as is typical for the genre, cobble together my first equipment from stones and sticks. With my first axe, I chop down my first trees and build my first houses to attract the first inhabitants to my future Nova Roma.
Apart from a rudimentary tutorial, the game doesn’t take me by the hand, and the demo lacks the pressure of many survival games: my character doesn’t starve or die of thirst; it’s entirely up to me whether I build my village first or grab a sword and shield to explore the world.
When exploring, Romestead plays like the old Super Nintendo Zelda games. The demo includes:
- Two complete biomes with more than 15 dungeons
- Three major boss fights, including one against a giant owl
Is Romestead fun?
I march through a dense forest, beat up satyr goblins who shoot at me with blowguns, explore ruins, recover treasures, and descend into trap-filled cellars.
That sounds exciting on paper, but in practice, Romestead still lacks substance in many areas—though that’s not unusual for a pre-early access demo. The combat is currently limited to simple clicking, blocking, and running away. Ironically, wild boars currently outshine all other monsters in terms of threat level due to their ramming attacks.
City building is also still in its infancy; I’m setting up the first goods production and farming buildings, but there’s currently no bigger game goal behind it. Nevertheless, Romestead already illustrates all the areas that could later become a really cool sandbox game. It even lets you compete in co-op mode. There is no concrete release date yet; Romestead is set to launch on Steam’s Early Access first. Until then, take the opportunity to give the demo a try. It doesn’t cost anything.
