Reversed city-builder Flooded gushes into PC on March 15

Disasters ahoy

Artificial Disasters has announced that their “reversed city-builder” Flooded will be washing out to sea on March 15, 2023.

You might be wondering what a “reversed city-builder” means. For me, personally, it brought back memories of calling every single disaster down on my SimCity 2000 creations. However, Artificial Disasters is using the descriptor as a way of explaining the slowly disappearing terrain in Flooded. Don’t get too comfortable with your initial landmass because, over time, it will be washed away. The goal is to place your buildings carefully to escape the approaching waves.

Tied into this are some RTS and rogue-lite elements. There are campaign, quickplay, and endless modes to tackle. The campaign is story-driven, having you build arks to travel the expanding oceans to figure out what is causing them to rise. You’ll have to defend yourself from other survivors out to plunder your settlements because even when faced with the end, humans will always be eager to destroy lives.

City-builders is one of my favorite relaxation genres. However, Flooded looks like it’s aiming to add an element of stress with its constantly ticking countdown. Still, I always enjoy a bit of progress to give a nice framework to the constant people-pleasing. If I have one hang-up, it’s that I’m not crazy about the art style. However, Artificial Disasters is a solo developer effort, and it can be difficult for one person to cover every aspect of design. It’s definitely not a deal-breaker for me..

Flooded hits PC on March 15, 2023. If you’d like to see if it’s your speed, a demo is available via Steam and GOG.