Embark

Embark

Overly Complicated Games · 2019 · Colony Sim, Base Building, Strategy, Indie, Simulation

PC
Mixed59% · 360
Best price
$24.99
lowest tracked $19.99
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Steam
Steam
Standard Edition · Steam
$24.99
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About Embark

Embark is a colony management game with a focus on complex simulation in a huge living 3D world. It is a game targeted at enthusiasts of the genre who are looking for a deeper experience. While a lot of effort has been put into the interface, and there is a short tutorial, there is still a significant learning curve (especially while in Early Access).
  • Order your colonists to build the ultimate base in multiple Z levels.
  • Manage your colonists' needs.
  • Watch your colonists live their own lives and have their own relationships.
  • Build aqueducts and pumps to manage a detailed water simulation system.
  • Farm food with a detailed plant simulation system.
  • Tame and hunt animals.
  • Craft dozens of different items to keep your colonists happy and defend yourself.
  • Dig deep to find sources of metal ore with a prospecting system.
  • Explore the massive game map.
  • Defend your colony with a detailed combat system.
  • Play a procedurally generated map with different biomes and places of interest each time.
  • Each component of an item has a material and quality which affects the item differently.
  • Impress or fight with other factions.
  • Trade with other factions.
  • Modding, with Steam workshop support.

EXPLORE
Explore a huge procedurally generated 3D world and meet its inhabitants. Embark simulates thousands of flora and fauna in detail. Time of day, seasons, temperature, and precipitation are modeled in detail. These conditions can have effects that help or hinder your colony. Crops can fail from lack of water or an early frost.

CRAFT
Gather a large variety of materials and craft items with a deep hierarchical crafting item system. With practice comes the ability to build better items, smith more effective weapons and armours, and smelt better ores. Each part of an item affects its effectiveness in different ways. A spear could be made with an iron head and wooden shaft, or it could have a steel head and bronze shaft.

BUILD
Rebuild civilization block by block. Embark’s fully destructible world allows you to build anything from small trading outposts to huge fortresses. Order your people to build complex structures and sit back and watch as they complete them. Your colony depends on you. Your management style may result in a cohesive well oiled military machine or a dysfunctional band on the brink of murdering each other. Reward a skilled craftsman with a larger room to make her more productive but be careful, as her friends may get jealous at the “unfair” treatment.

DEFEND
Defend yourself from multiple threats using a deep combat system which models individual body parts, weapon sizes, character skills, and more. Build the ultimate fort to keep intruders out, but beware! Some enemies can dig, climb, or fly to reach you.

What Steam players say

Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.

✦ AI summary

Players are unanimously frustrated that the developer has abandoned this Early Access game to work on another project, breaking what they feel was an implicit promise to finish it. Beyond the abandonment issue, reviewers cite gameplay bugs including pathfinding problems and equipment management issues that remain unfixed. The consensus is strongly against purchasing, with calls for Steam to delist and refund the title entirely.

Not recommended Aug 10, 2025
Game isnt finished but postponing finishing it to start a new game.... abandoned...
8 found this helpful
Not recommended Aug 3, 2025
Dev announced he is abandoning the game for another one. Avoid this dev.
7 found this helpful
Not recommended Feb 1, 2026
Steam should delist and refund completely abandoned titles.
4 found this helpful
Not recommended Feb 3, 2026
Dev cut and run. Don't support this person. This game shouldn't even be on Steam for sale.
3 found this helpful
Not recommended Jun 25, 2026
unfinished Early Access game which will likely never be finished by the developer. Do not buy this!
1 found this helpful
Not recommended May 18, 2026
The game is half done and the developer said their are not working on it for a year so they can work on a different game. I gave them my money on the basis that they would finish the game and not start developing something else like some developer magpie who spotted a shiny new game to make. I would imagine this is the same for other owners of this game. I have endured too many early access failures and this looks exactly like the same thing. Actual problems with the game: Pathing; if you create a work order that someone cannot reach they often won't do any other work of the same type. Equipment; characters will often pick up multiple pickaxes, hatchets and hoes and not put them down on their own. If they have too much equipment on them they will stop working because they can't pick anything up but they won't notify you that this is happening so you are trying to figure out of all the different ways they can fail which one they actually did. Growing; You can grow all sorts of plants in this game but you can't grow trees you just have to wait for them to spawn more trees so if you build a base and it has trees in it just thin them don't cut them all down. Farmers will keep harv…

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