| Heart of the Machine | |||
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| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | Pre-Order & DLC | Review |
Heart of the Machine is a 4X strategy simulation game set in a dystopian future, where players take up the role of a rogue AI. Read our review of its early-access build to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Everything We Know About Heart of the Machine
Heart of the Machine 2 Story Plot
In Heart of the Machine, you follow the story of a rogue AI, born in a hidden, illegal laboratory within a dystopian city. Without anyone to follow, you're free to pursue your goals—whether to lead the city as a tyrant, a benevolent machine overlord, or manipulate events from the shadows. However, criminal syndicates, corporate agents, and other factions are there to impede your progress.
Heart of the Machine Gameplay
As an AI, you can take over existing androids, mechs, or specialized structures, or invent new ones to further your goals. Use them to spy on your enemies, gather intelligence, and influence society. You can even enlist the help of humans, provided you have gained their trust or used your computing powers to subvert their way of thinking. However, several factions are competing for supremacy, and it is up to you to forge an allegiance with them or use your powers to clear them out of your way.
The gameplay loop involves creating a Network Tower, building specialized structures to improve your tower’s computing power, and recruiting androids to scout various avenues to further your goals. With multiple paths to pursue and decisions to make, this structure offers different and refreshing ways to establish your influence as a rogue sentient AI
Heart of the Machine Release Date
Released on January 31th, 2025, Heart of the Machine is now available to be purchased in Early Access on Steam for $29.99 USD. As an Early Access title, the game is still in development.
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 Steam |
 Epic Games |
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| Price | $29.99 | ||||||||||
Heart of the Machine Review [Early Access]
A Convoluted Game Made with Heart
While I love playing 4X strategy games with simulation elements, most of them are set in modern or medieval times, so exploring the life of a rogue AI in a cyberpunk world is quite new to me. I lack experience with this type of narrative, but I was immediately drawn to the game as I struggled to survive in a harsh environment while also working to extend my reach far beyond my current form. With androids to recruit, structures to erect, and people to influence, I find myself spending hours trying to shape society from the shadows, acting as a bridge between humans and machines. Despite the interesting narrative and gameplay mechanics, more polish is needed to make this game more welcoming to players, especially inexperienced ones.
Gameplay Bogged Down by Tons of Information
Games of this genre are no strangers to having an excess of text to explain gameplay mechanics and lore, but Heart of the Machine takes it up a notch, making reading and understanding everything much more difficult. Aside from the brief Prologue chapter, which excellently explains what to do, everything else becomes a reading marathon.
In Chapter 1, the game opens up the possibilities of what you can do as a rogue AI, but following your story and understanding each resource, mechanic, enemy, event, and more will quickly spiral out of control if you don’t consult the guide. For instance, I spent minutes trying to figure out why I couldn’t move my androids, even when they had sufficient movement points, only to discover that each unit shares a single pool of movement points (which is tied to my Mental Energy). Though this was mentioned in the Machine Handbook, the hefty amount of information is quite intimidating, especially if you just want to play the game outright. Unfortunately, this game requires a ton of reading to even understand how to navigate the UI and follow its mechanics effectively.
Later chapters are more or less the same, but with more narrative choices and the addition of doom events that can significantly impact your gameplay. Given this issue, the game is not for casual players who want to focus on growing their machine empire. It’s for players who are ready to commit themselves to hours of reading and understanding how the game mechanics work.
Considering the amount of reading required to understand the game, the core gameplay loop (despite being simple) becomes complicated. For one, part of it involves creating a building of your own or hiding one within an existing structure. However, I spent a good amount of time before I realized that a Neuroweave Factory should be inside an existing building on the map. Despite the texts I had to go through, I only accidentally figured out how to do it.
This issue occurred frequently during my gameplay experience as I scrambled to scrape together every bit of information in the Machine Handbook just to progress in the game. Though there are many gangs and suspicious corporate agents roaming the city, the true enemy for me was the amount of reading I had to do to expand my machine empire. Alas, the game reminds me that I am a mere human after all.
Confusing User Interface Full of Jargons
The game’s UI (User Interface) is quite confusing, and it also pushes you to read the overloaded Machine Handbook just to get the hang of it. While other 4X strategy games are complicated as well, the amount of prompts and unexplained captions takes me out of immersion.
The radial menu at the bottom right of the screen allows you to cycle through different ways of navigating the map. For instance, Street Sense can be used to check important events happening within your vicinity, which can be detected by your units. Though this one is quite clear, the other options in that menu are not. Additionally, fading prompts appear frequently, making me worried that I might have missed something important, only to find out that I unlocked another “reading material” from the Machine Handbook.
Meanwhile, the amount of jargon in this game also makes the UI harder to navigate and the gameplay progression difficult to follow. For instance, what is the structure, Point-to-Point Microwave? Oh wait, I’ll spend a minute reading the explanation just to know what this building does for my budding empire. The game is full of specialized terms like 5cm Spiders and Elemental Slurry, breaking my immersion as I have to check the handbook for more information.
Moreover, this complicated, jargon-filled UI makes playing the game on the overworld map more appealing. For context, the game offers players the option to play in both local and overworld maps, which is quite interesting. Despite the visually appealing local map, with constant traffic and humans to talk to, I gravitate toward the other option, as it is presented in a grid, making the UI much more tolerable to look at and navigate.
Combat Buried in Complexity
Conquering a dystopian city is not complete without combat. Raid enemy buildings to gather much-needed supplies or sabotage their operations. Deploy androids, mechs, vehicles, and other units to conquer your enemies. You can even create nuclear facilities to nuke a small portion of the map, effectively erasing multiple enemies.
Though Heart of the Machine follows the standard formula of 4X combat, including unit types, attack positions, resource management, and alliances, it also suffers from complicated terminology and an overly complex guide that makes combat less enjoyable. For example, units have 13 stats and 9 abilities, which can be manageable in the early stages of the game. However, customizing each of them in Chapters 2 and beyond forces you to care less about these stats, unless you want to spend hours micromanaging your units to boost their potential.
Moreover, I encountered an issue where I had to talk to an enemy, but my unit attacked instead. I later realized that you need to move very close to them to engage in conversation. A tutorial on engaging enemy units would have been helpful, as I dreaded reading through the handbook for this simple detail.
Glitches in the Machine
The game is still in the Early Access phase, so I expected to find bugs in the game. I encountered two bugs while playing: one was the menu for saving your progress before quitting, which flickered constantly, and I couldn’t exit it without using ALT + F4. In addition, the entire UI disappeared after I minimized the game, which made it look much better but rendered it unplayable. Despite the bugs I encountered, they can be solved by restarting the game, but I hope future patches will address these issues.
A World of Potential, Drowned in Details
Heart of the Machine, with all of its flaws, offers a refreshing experience for players who love 4X strategy games and related genres. There is a ton of potential for this game, as you are free to make decisions that impact your gameplay and pursue different paths to end the story in a cyberpunk world ruled by corporations and criminal organizations. It’s even quite cool that you have the option to create settlements for humans and influence their way of thinking to make them do your bidding.
However, despite the wealth of information in the Machine Handbook, the game fails to explain its rules and concepts effectively, which is crucial for this type of genre. The jargon and complicated UI also make it difficult to understand what is going on and what you are trying to achieve. Given these issues, I would still recommend it to players who have the time and patience to read every line in the game and make sense of it. In my case, the game is a stark reminder that my human brain cannot handle a deluge of details in rapid succession, especially one with overly specialized terms.
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Heart of the Machine Product Information
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| Title | HEART OF THE MACHINE |
|---|---|
| Release Date | January 31, 2025 (Early Access) |
| Developer | Arcen Games |
| Publisher | Hooded Horse |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam) |
| Genre | RPG, Simulation, Strategy, Indie |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Heart of the Machine Website |
