One of the best strategy games on Steam is finally getting a sequel

As a lifetime strategy game disciple, 2024 is genuinely starting to worry me now. Ara History Untold is on the way. Likewise Millennia, Frostpunk 2, and Manor Lords. We’ve already had the superb Solium Infernum, and of course, there are still distant rumblings of Civilization 7. My life is about to be consumed by technology trees, tile-based conquest, military management, and diplomacy. And now another of Steam’s greatest strategy games, from the publisher behind Ixion, City of Gangsters, and Warhammer 40k: Mechanicus, is getting a sequel. 2024 is truly the year of the RTS, the 4X, and the management game.

The long-awaited sequel to the 2019 original, Rise of Industry 2 is finally on its way. A strategy game with shades of Cities Skylines 2, Two Point Hospital, and the tycoon classics of the ‘90s and early ‘90s, Rise of Industry 2 leaps forward in time from the first game’s 1930s setting to the red-braced, chunky cell-phoned fervor of the 1980s. As stock market deregulation and Reaganomics push American industry to new heights, your job is to develop and manage a prosperous company town while balancing your relationships with other businesses and CEOs.

The original Rise of Industry let you choose from 150 different product lines, bid for contracts, and customize your research and development goals. Random economic events could throw your whole operation into disarray, or bounce the markets in your favor. Likewise, you needed to keep workers and the nearby population happy or face the backlash of pressure groups and unions.

Rise of Industry 2 builds on all of this with a scenario-based campaign mode, a fresh art style, and an all-new connections system, whereby you can leverage your profits by forging allegiances with other corporations, or enter bitter rivalries with your competitors. We’re still waiting on a release date, but you can wishlist Rise of Industry 2 on Steam right now.

Alternatively, take a look at some other great management games, or maybe the best city building games available on PC.

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