Heart of the Machine – a sentient AI gone rogue – thankfully it is a game, for now

We cover a lot of AI and robot-related stories here at Readwrite and it’s probably not going to be an overly long time until we are reporting on the start of the last Great War, man vs machine where we get to see if our existing tanks are any match for a fleet of Terminator driven Cybertrucks.

At the moment though, while we patiently wait, we are going to get the opportunity to play out that scenario courtesy of the upcoming Heart of the Machine, the new game from Arcen Games and our favorite publisher right now, Hooded Horse.

Hooded Horse has brought about some of my personal favorite games of the last couple of years and that makes me excited for this one. Against the Storm and Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic have taken up more time than my family and I am hoping this could be the next one that keeps me away from family gatherings.

“Deciding to let humanity enjoy the holiday season in full before welcoming everyone’s new robot overlords, the game will release into early access on January 31, 2025.”

Annoyingly that means family Christmas is still on. Does nobody listen to me?

We will hand over to the official description, as they describe it better than we ever could: “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.

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?”

If you can’t wait to get wiping out humanity (and why would you) there is a demo available on the game’s Steam Page that showcases a new build of what’s in store and features:

• A rewritten prologue that involves multiple paths
• New quests and events – adopt a pet, establish a shell corporation, and more!
• New systems for solving problems, including morale, hacking, and even debates
• Reworked combat and building systems with new interesting choices and strategies
  And much (much much) more

We do think this one is going to be pretty good, so go and check it out for yourself and circle that date at the end of January.

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