For some odd reason, 2025 seems to be the year of Roman-era city-builders. From Anno 117 to Roman Triumph, it's certainly been a great period for those who love their forums and temples.
But now we're getting another game, whose demo is already out and attracting a good chunk of players: Nova Roma.
Much like Roman Triumph, which I spoke of earlier this year, Nova Roma is styled more after Banished than Anno. You are tasked with erecting a new Roman settlement at the twilight of the Empire, managing your residents' needs, health, happiness, and, what's most crucial, ensuring they're warm during the winter.
The game adopts a cartoonish art style, exchanging realism for beauty and color. Every visual is striking, and the maps themselves are incredible canvases perfectly suited for Rome's new beginnings. It's in many ways akin to Banished in its gameplay, but it streamlines many of the processes to ensure frustration is kept at a minimum.
Though Banished has a clear-cut progression system, it doesn't always work out so well. More often than not, you'll spread out and expand quickly at the start, but have your entire population decimated just as fast. In Nova Roma, such worries are put aside. Your citizens will freeze to death, and the odd egg will wander out into the sea, never to be seen again (this is an actual event in the game), but the rapid collapse we've come to know in Banished isn't part of the experience.
Some influence of Anno does exist. Citizens have select needs that must be fulfilled depending on their strata, there is a linear progression in social class even if it isn't clearly stated like in Anno, and enemies (i.e. Rome itself) will try to come and conquer you every now and again. You must dedicate temples to various gods, like in Anno 117, only here they get really mad if you don't dedicate enough of these shrines to them.
Appeasing the Olympian host is just as important as keeping your citizens at bay, giving you something to do at every point of your progression. The tech tree is tied to the gods' happiness, so you'd better offer those 40 grapes when Ceres asks you to.
The combination of nice visuals, a relatively challenging gameplay loop, and inspirations taken from the most influential games in this niche genre produces a fantastic little game that I could not get enough of. As said, the demo is free of charge and already available, while the full release is scheduled for Jan. 22 next year.
If you loved any of the games I've mentioned here, Nova Roma will probably scratch that same itch, doing so in a lovely, calmer, and unique way.
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