Sometimes I've wondered what it would be like to pack my bags, leave modern civilisation behind and start a new life up in the mountains. Bar the ever-looming danger of avalanches and my intense fear of heights, beginning a new life among the rocky alpines sounds pretty sweet. Better yet, why not build an entirely new civilisation from the ground up?
I'm in luck because Laysara: Summit Kingdom will let me do just that. As we saw at the PC Gaming Show, it's a gorgeous-looking strategy game with a unique twist of having to build your settlements around the crags, cliffs and caves of a ton of unique mountains.
After being forced out of the lowlands, you're tasked with building your people a new home in the mountains where everyone can thrive and prosper. Unfortunately, mountains are a little lower on the list of "safe places to live" in comparison to being on the ground. That means rebuilding the Kingdom of Laysara will be no easy task. Avalanches threaten to destroy all your hard work in one snowy swoop, for example. You'll need to take precautions to ensure your structures and citizens are safe, like planting forests in danger zones or trying manmade methods to redirect the snow.
When you're not dealing with nature's wrath, you'll be battling with a variety of mountains that present their own unique advantages and challenges. Maybe one is lush with vegetation and farmland, ripe for crop development to feed your villagers. Another may not have that but is instead flourishing with tons of valuable mining resources. A vital aspect of Laysara: Summit Kingdom will be developing transport networks that can scale vertically and horizontally across all of the different rocky settlements in order to share resources. It looks incredibly satisfying from the looks of the trailer, with giant lifts, ladders and rope bridges to bring mountains and towns together.
If you're a strategy buff, Laysara: Summit Kingdom is definitely one to whack on the Steam wishlist. Even if you're like me and strategy games aren't your usual genre of choice, the gorgeous graphics and mountain twist could maybe entice you to dive into a game you may normally glean over. I know I'll be giving it a go once it's out, which should be sometime in early 2023.
