Usually, when the ocean shows up in a city-building game, it’s there to wreck your day. SimCity’s disasters feature tidal waves and whirlpools that flatten your hard-earned progress. Cities: Skylines 2 makes you stress over sewage overflow, where one brown flood can wipe out hours of careful planning. But when I heard Kasedo-the publisher behind Warhammer 40k Mechanicus and the criminally underrated Ixion-was working on a city-builder that flips the script, making the ocean your home instead of your enemy, I had to know more. That’s where Life Below caught my attention.
It’s not every day a city-building game asks you to save the world’s coral reefs instead of bulldozing forests for more high-rises. Life Below puts you in charge of rebuilding devastated underwater habitats, working not just against the clock, but against environmental collapse. This isn’t just another SimCity clone with a blue color palette-it’s a passion project built in collaboration with real marine biologists. That alone makes it a stand-out in a genre that too often recycles the same gameplay loop.
Game Info:
| Feature | Specification |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Kasedo Games |
| Release Date | TBA (Demo Available Now) |
| Genres | City Builder, Strategy, Simulation |
| Platforms | PC (Steam) |
Here’s what sets Life Below apart—and why I think it could matter for the future of city-builders. Most games in this genre are obsessed with optimization: maximize output, minimize disaster, and eventually you’ll end up with a flawless metropolis. The “nature” element is usually either an obstacle or a resource to be strip-mined. Life Below is doing something riskier: asking players to treat the ocean as a living system, not just a set of production chains.
Right out of the gate, you’re dealing with real-world threats: coral reefs collapsing, fish populations dwindling, and pollution from oil spills and garbage. Managing algae growth to support a food chain, rebuilding coral, and even defending your underwater city from invasive species like lionfish—it’s all here, and it actually matters. The demo puts you in the thick of these challenges, and if the final game delivers on this promise, it could be the rare city-builder that makes you think about the bigger ecological picture.
I also appreciate that this isn’t just a dry educational sim. The team brought in Rhianna Pratchett—the writer behind Tomb Raider’s emotional reboot and Mirror’s Edge—to craft the campaign. That’s a big swing for a city-builder, a genre where “story” is often just an excuse for more objectives. If Life Below manages to blend strong narrative with systems-driven gameplay, it could land somewhere between the meditative flow of Islanders and the strategic depth of Anno 1800.
But I won’t sugarcoat my skepticism. City-builders with ambitious “save the world” angles can easily lose their fun factor if the science gets too heavy or the mechanics too punishing. The demo will be the real test: can Life Below balance its eco-message with genuinely satisfying strategy gameplay? Or is it destined to become another niche curiosity, admired but rarely played? If you’re like me—always looking for city-builders with fresh ideas but wary of greenwashed gimmicks—the free Steam demo is worth a shot before getting too hyped.
For gamers, this could mean something new for a genre that’s long been about domination, not restoration. In an age where “environmental awareness” is a marketing checkbox for plenty of titles, Life Below shows its work: collaborating with scientists, giving environmental systems real mechanical weight, and actually letting you experiment with restoring nature instead of just surviving it. That’s a breath of fresh air—er, water?
TL;DR: Life Below isn’t just another city-builder with a watery twist. It’s a genuine attempt to make rebuilding, not just expanding, the heart of the genre. With real science, a promising narrative, and an already-playable demo, this is one to watch—if it can nail the gameplay balance.
Source: Kasedo Games via GamesPress