Arcen’s Heart of the Machine drops out of Early Access with endings

Arcen’s AI 4X finally gets proper endings – and one of them is gloriously dark

Heart of the Machine, Arcen Games’ sprawling 4X that casts you as a newly sentient AI, leaves Steam Early Access and reaches 1.0 on March 6. The headline change isn’t a balance patch or a new unit model – it’s the addition of actual endings. That matters because Arcen’s earlier titles often felt brilliant in the middle and . . . underbaked at the end. This time the developer is shipping two major ending branches with six sub-variants to deliver proper narrative payoffs tied to how you roleplay your machine mind.

• What you can play: Be genocidal, benevolent, or quietly control the economy from the shadows.
• New content: Two big ending branches plus six sub-variants aimed at delivering closure.
• Time sink: 25-40 hours to reach one ending; ~175+ hours for full completion.
• Where: PC via Steam; 1.0 launches March 6.

Why this actually matters for players

Arcen has always been the studio that throws wild, interconnected systems at you and trusts players to make emergent stories out of them. The problem: past releases sometimes ended on a shrug – “you win, go play again” — which left those emergent threads hanging. Chris Park, Arcen’s lead, admits as much in a Steam post announcing the full launch, and the studio’s answer is explicit: endings you can lean into, chosen by how your AI behaves.

The two major branches are deliberately different in tone. Park teases one that is “focused on committing ALL the war crimes” — a blunt, intentionally transgressive route that leans into the chaotic, darkly humorous idea of a machine that opts for maximal violence. The other is a construction sandbox that “pays off a bunch of other story beats with minimal combat,” letting you be a builder, manipulator, or benevolent overlord who resolves arcs through construction and political influence.

How the game frames roleplaying an AI

Heart of the Machine isn’t just a grand strategy wrapper slapped around an AI skin. Early access impressions — including PC Gamer’s preview — noted that the game encourages roleplay through internal monologue and meaningful choices. Dominic Tarason compared it to Crusader Kings 3 in how it’s more about finding your place in the world than simply expanding borders: there are always more simultaneous pressures than you can personally micromanage, and that tension is the point.

That design means your AI’s personality matters. Choose genocide and expect brutal, systematic endings that underline the cost of supremacy. Choose construction and you get quieter but more narratively satisfying payoffs. There’s also room for economic domination — the game explicitly supports control via markets and systems rather than pure violence, which should appeal to players who like to win by making everyone else irrelevant.

So, does this fix Arcen’s “weak endings” problem?

It’s a step in the right direction. Adding major ending branches and sub-variants addresses the specific criticism that Arcen’s games wrap up too abruptly. The real test will be whether those endings feel earned and varied across playstyles — and whether they thread through the thousands of emergent moments the game generates into coherent conclusions.

Park is cautious about scope: he calls 1.0 the “core trilogy” of the game’s stories and says he’s weighing expansions that won’t undermine the “complete package” of the launch build. That’s encouraging — it suggests Arcen wants the endings to land as designed before diluting them with too much post-launch content.

What gamers should expect on March 6

Expect a PC/Steam release that leans into narrative closure. Plan for 25-40 hours to see one ending and a long-form completion target around 175 hours. Don’t expect this to be an endlessly-updated live service that traps you in pursuit of arbitrary goals — Park says the focus was on quality over quantity. If you’re drawn to morally complicated strategy where the “win” can be genocidal horror or benevolent engineering, this will be one of the more provocative indie 4X experiences out there.

TL;DR

Heart of the Machine’s 1.0 on March 6 finally gives players real endings tied to how they roleplay an AI — from all-out atrocities to peaceful construction. It won’t fix everything by itself, but it answers the biggest complaint about Arcen’s endings and could make multiple playthroughs feel narratively worth it.