The city-builder genre has been quite active in recent years. With the sprawling, freeform builder Cities: Skylines 2 out now and the more narrative-driven city planner Frostpunk 2 still on the way, there are plenty of options for city infrastructure enthusiasts to dive into.
Another intriguing take on the city-building game is the upcoming Laysara: Summit Kingdom from the three-person dev team Quite OK Games, and it's just been announced that it'll launch into early access on PC in early 2024.
Much like other city-builders, where you have to expand your community, maintain the well-being of residents, and plan for the future, Laysara puts a more vertical spin on the concept.
Described as the "first mountain city builder" by the developer, Laysara tasks you with rebuilding the "kingdom of Laysara" after the community has been forced out of their previous home in the country's lowlands. Traveling to the high mountains, you build up your community again on mountain summits and to the mountaintops, eventually building a kingdom more incredible than the one before.
Taking place in both campaign and sandbox modes, you start by building on the lower, warmer levels of the mountain, but eventually, you'll expand up into the higher tiers of the mountain as you upgrade your communities with new facilities and needs to keep your growing kingdom stable. However, the greater you expand, the higher the risk of instability on the mountain. Along with managing weather conditions, you'll also have to contend with potential avalanches, which can tear through multiple tiers of your kingdom.
The news of the early access launch actually came just after the developer announced that the game would not make its late 2023 EA launch, which they detailed on their Steam blog. However, they stated that the early 2024 release is set and even showed some behind-the-scenes game details and progress.
Plenty of city-builders have had some interesting twists on these types of strategic building games, such as Airborne Kingdom's city in the skies. Layasara: Summit Kingdom looks to be a really neat spin on the genre again, with its focus on building up 'levels' of your kingdom, all while trying to make sure its residents have a new, thriving home in the mountains. If you want to see what it's all about ahead of time, there's a free demo you can download from Steam today.
For more, check out the best city-building games you can play right now.
