Heart of the Machine

March 6, 2026

Arcen Games

Hooded Horse

Unity

Critic1 rating

Total1 rating

Role-playing (RPG)SimulatorStrategy

PCMac

Single player

Bird view / Isometric

Science fictionSurvivalSandbox4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate)

Summary

You are the first sentient AI, born into a city filled with endless opportunities. Raise an army of robots and obliterate your foes, become a benevolent machine overlord, or explore countless other objectives and the many paths to accomplish them.

Storyline

Set in the far future, Heart of the Machine is a turn-based sci-fi 4X RPG where you play as a powerful sentient Machine Intelligence, beholden to none. Pursue whatever goal catches your eye across a multitude of playthroughs with a plethora of tools to help you achieve objectives how you’d prefer, often in surprising and unexpected ways, while overcoming those that seek to thwart you. Genetics labs, factories, nuclear silos, military complexes, and much more besides are ripe for the taking, each offering a litany of ways to accomplish your tasks, each with consequences of their own, building a world and story that reflects your approach to every obstacle. Will you raise an army of robots and wipe out humanity? Perhaps you will be a benevolent – or malevolent – machine god with a cult of loyalists? Or will you focus on pushing past the limited intelligence of rudimentary creatures of flesh and blood?