There’s a peculiar comfort in the hum of most city-builders: expanding borders, optimizing resources, and basking in the illusion of control. Anoxia Station rips that safety net away, buries it beneath layers of irradiated stone, and leaves you gulping for air. This is no ordinary strategy game with a moody paint job—Anoxia Station is a relentless, claustrophobic, and frequently nerve-shredding reinvention of the genre, where every step forward could be your last.
Available now on Steam for $13.49/£11.51, Anoxia Station thrusts you into the boots of humanity’s final gambit: a mining colony deep beneath a post-apocalyptic 1988 Earth. Every breath is rationed, every tunnel is a gamble with death, and every decision carries real, existential weight. If you think city-builders are about sprawling ambition and gentle challenges, prepare to have those instincts throttled by something far more ruthless—and far more original.
Anoxia Station’s true genius is its inversion of the genre’s core urge: your desire to expand becomes your greatest liability. The base you manage is a cramped, oppressive maze, and every new chamber you dig could unleash horror—be it radiation, molten rock, or something ancient and hungry. Each decision to expand is a nerve-jangling wager with disaster.
Unlike in most survival-strategy games, here every square foot feels fraught. Drill for oil, expand your power grid, and you might trigger a cave-in or worse, forcing you to abandon hard-won ground and retreat even deeper. The interface doubles down on the anxiety, overlaying critical stats and glitchy, VHS-style effects that never let you forget how close you are to oblivion.
Anoxia Station strips city-building to its survivalist bones. Oxygen, water, and oil are not mere resources—they are the difference between life and extinction. Each is processed and consumed in tightly linked systems, and any failure cascades mercilessly. There’s no padding here: the minimalist menus reinforce the harsh, high-stakes loop of survival.
Every expansion is a calculated risk. Mining for oil can spark collapses; radio towers might reveal resources—or attract unwanted attention. The pressure never eases. The reward for surviving isn’t prosperity, but simply the chance to keep struggling a little longer.
There’s more lurking in the dark than resource shortages. Monstrous insects and worse test your automated defenses, but even victory offers only fleeting safety. You’re not just managing supplies—you’re managing the collective sanity of your battered crew. Pipe in calming music to keep panic at bay, but know that morale can fracture as quickly as a tunnel wall. Survival is as much psychological as it is logistical.
Forget city skylines and lush vistas. Anoxia Station builds its dread with a dense, lo-fi look—overlapping pipes, flickering lights, and ever-present VHS static that evoke a grainy, doom-laden 1980s. Audio design is masterful: sparse, haunting music blends with industrial hums, distant alarms, and the squirm of something approaching. It’s less about technical dazzle, more about squeezing your nerves until they snap.
Labeling Anoxia Station a city-builder is only partly true—it’s survival horror in disguise. Where other games reward ambition, Anoxia punishes it. Its closest cousins aren’t SimCity or Surviving Mars, but the existential dread of Solium Infernum or the punishing cycles of Darkest Dungeon. The minimalist approach ensures every action matters; there’s no room for sprawling creativity, just relentless, high-pressure decision-making.
If you seek relaxation or creative freedom, Anoxia Station will feel like a nightmare. But if you crave a merciless test of nerves and resourcefulness—if you love survival horror, brutal strategy, and the satisfaction of scraping by against all odds—then this is a rare gem. Its price is modest, but the experience is anything but easy. For those bold enough to descend, Anoxia Station offers the most original and intense take on city-building in years.
Anoxia Station is city-building stripped to its raw, terrifying essence. Claustrophobic, punishing, and brilliantly atmospheric, it’s not for everyone—but for the brave, it’s a survival strategy masterclass you won’t soon forget.
TL;DR: Anoxia Station is a brutal, horror-tinged survival city-builder where every expansion is a new risk. Unforgiving and uniquely atmospheric—a must for strategy and survival fans seeking something truly different.
Source: publisher