Dystopian survival game City 20 reveals detailed early access roadmap

Leaving you to fend for yourself in a city isolated by a radioactive leak, City 20 is a vicious and realistic societal sandbox sim that pulls no punches. It’s an open-world survival game where resource scarcity reigns supreme, necessitating farming, hunting, and crafting much as in the likes of Rust, Valheim, or Once Human. Yet, it also boasts a Sims style simulation with NPC factions that demand you consider how to approach every situation. Help out as a model citizen, or turn to a life of crime at the risk of severe consequence. Following its launch on Steam and Epic, developer Untold Games details exactly what we can expect over the next few months, with lots to come.

Staying alive in the world of City 20 requires you to make smart decisions. Every other member of the quarantined town has the same needs you do, and they’re just as capable (or not) as you are. Each of them have unique personalities, and that affects how they’ll react to you. Threaten the right person, and you might get away with a crime committed right to their face; threaten the wrong one, and you might find yourself waking up in the infirmary. Having now arrived in early access, Untold Games has laid out its plans for the survival game through the coming months.

To ensure the game runs as smoothly and cleanly as possible, October is reserved for bug fixing and additional polish to minimize any potential crashes or unexpected behaviors. Then in November an NPC update is coming. This will introduce new, unique quests for some of the inhabitants of City 20, along with improved, smarter AI and more natural behaviors that should further enhance your interactions with them. You’ll also get access to character agendas that track the friends and rivalries you’ve instigated.

December brings a private property overhaul. This will give you plenty of ways for you and the other villagers to keep valuables safe, including armored doors, locks, and new secured areas. NPCs and factions will also be updated with new systems designed to make them better at hiding things from unwanted prying eyes. Of course, while you’ll have keys for those locks, you can also expect the introduction of lockpicking systems and ways to get around the new security measures.

The next major patch is planned for February 2025, and will be a ‘post-atomic’ update. That means it focuses on the long-term effects of the fallout across City 20, with radioactive zones to watch out for, pollution that can affect specific areas or bodies of water, and poisoning. While you’ll naturally want to avoid these yourself, Untold Games teases that there may be ways to turn them in your favor: “Have you ever poisoned a water system?”

Beyond that is the road to 1.0, although Untold notes that timings for the other additions are more flexible. On the list are allied units, penalties and sentences for being caught doing crimes, new factions, character customization, the 1.0 story content, and seasons. You can also expect new quests to arrive with each update, ensuring there’s always more to discover.

City 20 is out now in early access on Steam and the Epic Games Store. It’s priced at $19.99 / £16.75, although Untold Games says it plans to increase the game’s price when early access ends, or potentially if major new features are introduced. Head here to take a look for yourself.

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