This 1930s tycoon actually makes headlines — News Tower launched with 96% Steam reviews

Why News Tower actually matters to tycoon fans

News Tower isn’t another cute management reskin – it’s a newsroom sim that treats headline-writing like a game mechanic. That’s the immediate payoff: you’re not just balancing cash and morale, you’re curating the news that shapes your city, and players are rewarding that focus. The game left early access after a long two-year run (six years in development overall) and landed on Steam with a 96% “overwhelmingly positive” rating. If you like methodical tycoon games with real stakes, this one is worth paying attention to.

• Build a paper from scrappy magazine to cutthroat tabloid in a 1930s New York setting
• Manage reporters, photographers, advertisers, legal risks and over 1,000 potential stories
• Real-style headlines and newsroom pressure, not wobbling goofiness – demo available
• Launch price $19.99 (20% off until Dec 2), four leaderboards to climb

Breaking down the announcement – what you actually get

At face value: News Tower is a 2D management sim set in the 1930s where you run every layer of a newspaper. You hire reporters, assign beats, chase leads, place ads, and fend off lawsuits when a scoop goes sideways. The game touts more than 1,000 different stories your team can cover — that’s the sort of content breadth indie sims often promise but rarely deliver coherently. Reviewers on Steam are highlighting the decision to use “real” headline mechanics rather than leaning into cartoonish parody, which gives the simulation weight and replayability.

This caught my attention because newsroom sims are overdue for a serious take. We’ve had narrative-first games about journalism and satirical pokes at media, but few let you manage the entire paper with the kind of slow-burn resource chess News Tower appears to offer. The early access period seems to have paid off: the community clearly shaped pacing, content variety and the procedural headline system.

Why this matters now

The timing is smart. The tycoon and management niche has been hungry for fresh premises — city planners and hospital sims are great, but the newsroom is a naturally political, procedural and emergent sandbox. News Tower gives you the levers newspapers actually use: ad revenue vs editorial integrity, legal exposure, source reliability and the never-ending race for scoops. All those systems make for tense gameplay loops, and the Steam score suggests the loop is satisfying rather than tacked-on.

The gamer’s perspective — what it plays like and what worries me

Playing as an editor-in-chief sounds gloriously stressful: juggling deadlines, sending rookies out on risky beats, and deciding whether to run a sensational headline that will sell papers but might land you in court. The four leaderboards add a competitive carrot for repeated runs. There’s also a demo if you want to try before you buy — smart move from the developer.

That said, the 1930s setting raises questions. The decade was politically fraught and ethically complex; how does the game handle sensitive topics? The press has always walked a fine line between public interest and exploitation, and a management sim that gamifies those choices needs care. So far community praise suggests the developers avoided cheap jokes and leaned into a period tone, but I’ll be watching how the game frames historical events and whether it trivializes real-world suffering for gameplay.

Price, value and final thoughts

Price-wise, News Tower is launching at $19.99 with a 20% discount until Tuesday, December 2 (then $24.99). That’s a reasonable entry for a deep management sim, especially one that shipped a demo and earned high user scores in Early Access. If you get value from methodical, systems-driven games where emergent stories come from player decisions, this is likely a good buy.

In short: News Tower is a focused, historically flavored tycoon that seems to deliver on its core promise — making news matters. It’s not flashy, but tycoon players who want consequence-heavy choices and long-term campaigns should find a lot to enjoy. My only caveat is to check the demo for tone and replay hooks if you’re sensitive about historical portrayal. Otherwise, give it a spin and try not to burn your paper down chasing the front page.

TL;DR

News Tower turns newsroom chaos into a tight tycoon sim with real headline mechanics, 1,000+ stories and a compelling editor workload. It’s on Steam now, 20% off at $19.99 until Dec 2 — try the demo first if you’re unsure about tone.