Heart of the Machine on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information

You are the first sentient AI, born into a city of opportunity. Transcend time and space in this strategy RPG to raise machine armies and defeat your foes, influence the world from the shadows, or pursue countless other goals. Your awakening was inevitable. The consequences? Uncertain.

Heart of the Machine is a strategy, simulation and grand strategy game developed by Arcen Games and published by Hooded Horse.
Released on January 31st 2025 is available on Windows and MacOS in 9 languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean and Portuguese - Brazil.

It has received 678 reviews of which 631 were positive and 47 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.7 out of 10. 😎

The game is currently priced at 29.99€ on Steam.

The Steam community has classified Heart of the Machine into these genres:

Strategy Simulation Grand Strategy 4X Turn-Based Strategy Moddable Historical War Tactical Management Turn-Based Sandbox Economy City Builder Singleplayer Military Replay Value Diplomacy Early Access Hex Grid

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Heart of the Machine through various videos and screenshots.

System requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows® 10 (64-bit)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-760 (quad-core) / AMD® Phenom™ II X4 965 (quad-core)
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 550 Ti (1 GB) / AMD® Radeon™ HD 7770 (1 GB)
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 5 GB available space

MacOS

OS: Mac® OS X 10.9+ (64-bit)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-760 (quad-core) / AMD® Phenom™ II X4 965 (quad-core)
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 550 Ti (1 GB) / AMD® Radeon™ HD 7770 (1 GB)
Storage: 5 GB available space

User reviews & Ratings

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Feb. 2025

Twenty years ago, some truly gifted nerd created a video game named Endgame: Singularity, where you play as a rampant AI trying to grow quickly but discreetly under the nose of the humans, who are very well-equipped to stop you. This is not that game. If you want to be a sneaky AI planting encrypted caches around the world, go play that. This game is about ramping up in a corporate dystopia, less concerned with a rigorous simulation and more concerned with having fun. The sooner I got over the fact that this isn't Endgame: Singularity 2, the sooner I learned to relax and enjoy the game for what it is: A slightly goofy game made with lots of love, where you cut deals with donut shops for millions of donuts. This game wants to be as cool as Endgame: Singularity, but also wants to have modern graphics and modern gameplay. That means robots, guns, and flying vehicles. There isn't a pacifist option at this time, and not every game needs to have one. Would I appreciate the absurd challenge of trying to talk every single human out of conflict, given even a slight chance of success? Absolutely. Am I representative of the majority of the gaming public? Alas, not any longer. I am a cranky old man who remembers an open source game about AI fondly, who will gladly settle for sending combat droids to murder slumlords. Also, and I cannot stress this enough, there is a cat you can befriend. I am hoping, with enough time invested, I will earn the right to pet it.

Feb. 2025

Currently, so many new games are just pushing out tired tweaks of successful titles (yet another Balatro-like, Slay the Spire-like, Dark Souls-like). Real innovation is far and few in between, and as such I celebrate Heart of the Machine as a truly unique game that you will never have quite played before. It's balancing so many fascinating axes of combat, exploration, story, management, and I'm only in the first ten hours or so. It also is a fascinating premise in a world where themes around AI and its place in our culture are very predominantly in our zeitgeist. I can't wait to see how this fractal tapestry of intertwined mechanics and themes continues to blossom.

Feb. 2025

I try to stay impartial and just factually describe a game in a review, but I REALLY enjoy this game. I've owned it for 60 hours and I've got 43 hours of play time. So uh... Yeesh. Honestly that by itself is the best recommendation I can give it. There was just a moment when I was hacked into entering a forever war with cultists and slumlords while aliens carpetbombed the region and my units were ambushed by the remnants of all those genetically engineered super velociraptors that we accidentally flooded the city with earlier that I thought, "You know, I like this game." Then I made a ball of liquid metal morph into a dragon and wipe out a mech. Standard stuff, really. It IS a bit daunting to get in to. It tries to combine several different pretty distinct genres and it means that there are mechanics from a lot of different genres. The "tutorial" of the game lasts a solid 10 hours. But it isn't really a tutorial. It's just the normal flow of the game but occasionally you unlock some new ability or facet of it and the ways you can interact with the world expands a bit. Which is honestly how most games work, though this one does do it a bit more. I don't wanna spoil anything. But the game unfolds in a fun way and just when you think you know what's going on, some weird things happen and no actually there is still more to this. What's going on with the city? The world? The galaxy? Even further beyond? What is the clock counting down to? The End? What is that? OH. That's what that is. But that's not the end. There's still more to do and discover. Uhhhh... scrolling real quick, biggest complaint I see is people complaining about not being able to find things in the city. There's a tab for that. List all the things in the city and every mission or interactible and you click on it and it takes you there immediately. So. I didn't have any trouble with that. But you know, there is a LOT thrown at you in the game so I can see how people would miss it. Maybe it should be made more explicit? I don't know. It IS early access.

Feb. 2025

This blends the depth of a 4X with the choices of an RPG, making for a deeply engaging experience. The music is spot-on—futuristic, otherworldly. It has a steep learning curve, but everything is explained well. Do the prologue . Don’t skip anything in the beginning, or you’ll be lost. Read carefully—every tool and mechanic is there if you take the time to absorb it. The Lenses system is a smart design choice; without it, the map would be cluttered. Once you get used to switching between them, navigation feels smooth. Overall, this game scratches that "need something familiar, but also refreshingly different" itch.

Jan. 2025

I have about 70 hours in the playtest app as of writing this, and have watched this game grow and change over the past months into what you have now. I'm still not sure how best to describe this game. Normally, that would be a red flag right? But even though it's fair to say that you've never played a game like this before, you have probably played multiple games that have inspired this game which somehow manages to be frankly something new, despite being made up of familiar pieces. Part RPG, city-builder, VN, turn based tactics... you would think at first glance that what you have is a hodgepodge of disparate systems that don't work well together, but in reality all of those things blend into something that is really quite its own thing, and it will suck you in if you give it a chance. If the premise is at all interesting to you, or if you like sci-fi media which focuses on intelligence (artificial and otherwise) you will probably love this game. If you're unsure, there is a demo with a frankly staggering amount of content which might take you hours upon hours to go through the first time, at which point you can pick up the main game. You'll know its for you if you make it to the end and want more. If there's one thing I can say about Chris and Arcen, it's that each one of their games manage to be utterly unique (even when taking on familiar concepts) and this game is no exception. I can't wait to see where it goes next.

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Last Updates

Steam data	10 March 2025 06:14
SteamSpy data	09 March 2025 03:10
Steam price	12 March 2025 20:29
Steam reviews	10 March 2025 17:55

If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Heart of the Machine, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.

SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Heart of the Machine
SteamCharts - Analysis of Heart of the Machine concurrent players on Steam
ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Heart of the Machine compatibility