The most popular city builder in Steam Next Fest is a super-chill fantasy twist from one of the genre's pioneers

A top-down view of a lush village from Pioneers Of Pagonia — (Image credit: Envision Entertainment)

Scrolling through Steam Next Fest - Valve’s digital event celebrating upcoming games - can feel quite overwhelming. Mainly because there’s just so many good demos to chow down on, but also because playing through the hundreds of demos can feel like tonal whiplash. In the past few days, I’ve zoomed between euphoric roguelikes, open-world racers, and punishing LEGO-like apocalypses. But thankfully, the demo for Pioneers Of Pagonia offers a chill getaway for us poor, exhausted souls.

Pioneers Of Pagonia is the newest city builder from Volker Wertich, who was the original creator behind The Settlers. His new team at Envision Entertainment has dreamed up a different take on The Settlers’ pleasures, focusing more on the exploration, community aspects and, well, settling. Your usual resource management and infrastructure planning are here in full force, too, of course.

The demo was released slightly before Steam Next Fest (cheeky) but it’s currently the most popular city builder in the event. Pioneers Of Pagonia’s demo features three maps set on fantastical, albeit barren, islands where you’ll need to settle via economic expansion, resource mining, and continual construction.

Of course, I chose the easiest map because I'm as responsible as a 7-year-old who can’t keep a goldfish alive. I thought the game was a reasonably fun time, threading the line between interesting decision-making and chill vibes. Be careful, though; the demo is light on tutorials.

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.