This city-builder on a monster's back is one of Steam's most-wanted games, and it's out this month

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The Wandering Village finally hits Steam Early Access after three years in development

The Wandering Village
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studio)

After years in development, The Wandering Village is finally due to become publicly available, as developer Stray Fawn Studio has announced that the city-building game is set to launch into Steam Early Access on September 14.

The Wandering Village is a city-builder with a twist: your city rests on the back of a giant monster. You'll have to do the usual bits of building up a town, directing your villagers toward resources, and managing those resources to keep everyone fed and happy.

But the creature your town sits on top of will keep walking as you do, leaving you to deal with changing weather and more serious environmental hazards as the beast wanders across the globe. That unique setting and focus on survival has already helped The Wandering City stand out, though with the devs listing Frostpunk, Timberborn, and Airborne Kingdom as influences, it's certainly built on some solid foundations.

The game was successfully funded on Kickstarter nearly two years ago, so the upcoming Early Access launch on Steam has been long-awaited. It's currently among Steam's top 30 most-wishlisted games, buoyed by the popularity of several well-liked demos during various Steam festivals.

The devs aren't sure when the 1.0 version will launch, as they say in a FAQ that The Wandering Village is "planned to stay in Early Access for one year or longer." While no console versions of The Wandering Village are set to launch alongside the Steam release on September 14, an Xbox Game Preview launch is planned for 2023.

Don't miss any of the best city building games out there.

Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.