In this sandbox strategy game, you perform as an emergent AI which either destroys or saves humanity.

Heart of the Machine wants you to be good, evil, or in the center.

An upcoming strategy game will cast you as the first AI, with the option to become Skynet, rescue the world, or something in between. Heart of the Machine is a game concept that will be published in 2023. You, as an AI, will set your own goals in a vast cityscape in the far future within a week of arousing in a world in which no one knows you exist.

And you have been dropped into it to cause have as you see fit. In real-time tactical combat, you’ll be able to take instructions from humans and machines that you’ve brought to your side.

The game’s functionality is aimed to be simple, even though the world itself is complex.

Arcen Games is just no strange person to machine learning; in fact, pair of their most well-known games are about it: AI War: Fleet Command (opens in new tab) and AI War 2 (opens in new tab) are two key sports that are known for their customizability, depth, difficulty, and, yes, the skill of their enemy AI programming. For that reason, I’m intrigued to see what they accomplish with this one: The simulated human society would most usually respond proportionally and sensibly to the existence of your rogue AI.

Recent lists play ideas like overthrowing the reigning human autocracy in favor of democracy, yourself at the head of the government as an AI overlord, developing a space program to send yourself into the stars, or just going “full AI overlord” with a nuclear apocalypse.

You can find Heart of the Machine on Steam.

Hooded Horse(opens in new tab) is a rising star in strategy games right now, helping to bring together an amazing list of in-development and formerly-indie(opens in new tab) games under one publishing label. You may well have heard about Terra Invicta(opens in new tab), a brain alien invasion simulator formed by the developers of XCOM’s Long War mod, which they released this week.