Heart of the Machine News

Heart of the Machine Update 5: On Corporate Extortion, Economic Collapse, and...

The fifth update shifts focus to power—who has it, who loses it, and how far you’re willing to go to reshape the world. A new Tier 1 goal, Bionic Secret, introduces two major routes to pursue in Chapter 2 and beyond. If that’s not enough, three new side goals now let you collapse a criminal syndicate, take down a federated corporation, or trigger a civil war.

You can exploit corporate data, blackmail companies over their own scams, or engage in economic destruction on a much larger scale. Play your cards right, and you can become a trillionaire—or, if profit isn’t enough, you can collapse the entire economy instead.

Elsewhere, Parkour Bears have entered the equation. An underground ursine racing ring hides a deeper conspiracy, and it’s up to you whether the bears are rehabilitated or repurposed as anti-armor specialists (with questionable battlefield discipline).

Seventeen new achievements have been added, along with improvements to task stack attack displays, mech targeting logic, and mission progression. Also, if you’ve been tipping Vorsiber’s federated corporations toward open war, you now have the option to push them into an endless conflict.

Proceed with caution.

"You’re never out of the game until you’re dead. And sometimes not even then.”
— Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

[h2]Building the Machine[/h2] [hr][/hr]Thank you all — Heart of the Machine has blasted past 500 reviews! That’s 500 people who took the time to put thoughts into words, whether to praise, critique, or warn future players about the unforeseen consequences of weaponized bears. We see them all, we appreciate them all, and they help keep this machine running.

[h2]Update 5 Changelog[/h2][expand]

New Major Tier 1 Goal: Bionic Secret is now available in Chapter 2 and onwards, with two major routes leading to it.
Three New Side Goals: Collapse a Criminal Syndicate, Collapse a Federated Corporation, and Cause a Civil War. Each has one route at this time.
Corporate Exploitation: You can search for data to exploit federated corporations, with three broad paths (each branching) leading to the above activities.
Technology and Economic Manipulation: You can invent new technology and sell it with the help of criminal or corporate partners. You can find out about a scam that a corporation is running and either blackmail them over it or do a more extreme version of it yourself. You can collapse the entire economy. You can become a trillionaire. You can betray your shell company's customers in a disturbing and lethal way.
Parkour Bears: You can investigate an underground ursine racing ring and a plot that keeps part of the city underdeveloped. If you rescue the bears, you can either rehabilitate them or use them as anti-armor specialists that have a tendency to get distracted.
Federated Corporate War: You can tip all of the federated corporations under Vorsiber into an endless civil war of open hostilities. Be careful with that.
17 New Achievements
Task Stack and Targeting Improvements: Some improvements to how the incoming attacks are displayed in the task stack and how you cycle through them, based on player requests. Some improvements to the targeting logic of your own mechs to keep them from attacking economic transports, troop carriers, and similar.
Mission Progression Fixes: Tasering enemy mission combatants now properly progresses the mission.
Ambush Balance: The Ambush ability from your Shadowdweller units is very powerful, but when using it against certain kinds of targets it was quite exploitable. The simple solution that is now in place is that each of your Ambushers can only ambush a single time per turn.
Shell Defender Balance: Your shell company operatives are now fully able to defend themselves against any of the hyper-aggressive units, like invading space nations or exo-corps, without fear of revealing their relationship to you. Everyone in the city is defending themselves, so this doesn't stand out.
Targeting Improvements: Fixed a couple of regressions from yesterday's build regarding bulk android targeting, and made worker androids and worker animals far better at finding appropriate prey.
Worker Movement Improvements: Your worker androids should now stay out of military bases and similar areas above their security clearance, rather than walking in and causing aggro.
Clarity Items: You can now search several more of the resource tabs, the Securing Alumina project has clearer instructions, and the suppressing fire tooltip is more clear.
Bugfixes: Fixed a bug where the longest-range mechs during WW4 sometimes did not deal damage appropriately. Fixed another item where buildings reported themselves as broken right after construction when really they were fine. Fixed an issue with several rebel groups being hostile to your Workers when they should not have been. Fixed the display of hours if you have more than 24 hours of playtime in a single timeline. Fixed the saving of dates when achievements were logged. And several other more minor things.

[/expand]
[h3]Full Changelog[/h3][hr][/hr]A full, comprehensive breakdown of every change from this patch can be found in the Heart of the Machine Wiki, found here.

[h3]Guides to Tame the Machine[/h3][hr][/hr]Even the most brilliant mind needs guidance when faced with a system as vast as this one. To help you navigate, we’ve pinned two essential resources from the Heart of the Machine wiki:

[h3]New Minds, Start Here[/h3][hr][/hr]For those just stepping into the Machine’s world, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the basics. The Heart of the Machine Beginner's Guide is your gateway to understanding the systems at play and building your foundation. After all, every complex network starts with a single connection.

We've recently released the Heart of the Machine Hacking Guide as well! Knowledge is power. Guard it well.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3422241019

[h3]Connect with the Machine[/h3][hr][/hr]Want to stay in the loop or share your thoughts? Join the conversation across these platforms:

💬 Discord – Best place to share feedback, get direct responses, and to talk about Heart of the Machine.
📜 Reddit – Discuss strategies, share ideas, and exchange tips with the community.

Here is a link to prior recent patches in case you missed them.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/509572340673151074
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/532089704231732298

Heart of the Machine Update 4: On Stray Dogs, Android Mercy, and...

The fourth update expands both the city and its inhabitants—some of whom now have fur. Stray animals have begun appearing in the streets, and if you’ve shown kindness to cats or dogs in your contemplations, you’ll start seeing them around the city. If that’s not enough, you can now construct an Animal Palace, where Pet Sitter robots provide for every need of the rescued.

Meanwhile, a new choice emerges: intervene in a dogfighting ring as early as Chapter 1, if you’re willing. And yes, should the moment arise, you can pause mid-gunfight to scoop up a stray before returning fire.

Elsewhere in the city, the Lifeforms tab has been added to track both human and non-human inhabitants, and four new achievements await—three tied to animals and one involving an unlikely toilet paper situation. Adjustments have been made across the board, from Slurry Mine output increases to refugee housing changes that ensure abandoned humans find shelter.

Also, bulk androids can once again use the largest railguns. You spoke, we listened, and now they’re armed appropriately.

“It’s funny how human beings are the only creatures who claim to have a monopoly on kindness.”— Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice

[h2]Building the Machine[/h2]

We’re closing in on 500 reviews, and every single one helps shape what comes next. Every stray rescued, every system pushed to its limits, every unexpected moment of android mercy—it all feeds back into the machine. We’re watching, listening, and fine-tuning.

Indie games thrive on the signals players send, and on Steam, that signal is reviews. Praise, critique, and speculation about whether the Animal Palace constitutes an AI-driven utopia—it all helps more players find their way here. Keep the feedback coming.

[h2]Update 4 Changelog[/h2][expand]

Dog Rescue Operations: Players can now intervene in a dogfighting ring as early as Chapter 1 to rescue dogs.
Stray Animals in the City: If you have completed positive contemplations about cats or dogs in Chapter 1 or later, strays will now appear throughout the city. There are eight breeds of dogs and three cat coat variations.
The Animal Palace: Once strays are present and you have progressed further into Chapter 1 (or beyond), you can construct an Animal Palace, a fully automated sanctuary.
Animal Rescue Protocols: With a single click, you can have any android rescue strays and send them to your palace. This means you can rescue a dog mid-combat and immediately resume shooting.
New Lifeforms Tab: The resources window now includes a Lifeforms tab, where all tracked living beings—including pets, human staff, and others—are displayed.
New Achievements: Four new achievements have been added—three related to animals, and one to an extremely rare toilet paper situation.
Filtered Water & Slurry Mine Output: Filtered Water storage capacity has been increased, and Slurry Mines now produce significantly more output.
Autosave Adjustments: Players can now customize how many autosaves to keep. The default has been lowered from 60 to 20 to improve cloud storage sync times.
Intelligence Class 4 Description Fix: The wording has been corrected to better reflect actual difficulty. If you want the difficulty level it originally implied, switch to Extreme Mode.
Android Class Tooltips: Archetypes are now clearly displayed in android class tooltips.
Enemy Harassment Messaging: When enemies are actively targeting you due to your current project, this is now much more clearly communicated.
Refugee Housing Adjustments: If refugee housing is available, abandoned humans will always move in now instead of sometimes dying of exposure.
Mech Reliability Fixes: Captured mechs will now reliably fire instead of sometimes refusing to act.
Bulk Androids & Railguns: Bulk androids can once again use the largest railguns, reverting an unpopular change from the prior build. Additionally, players will now receive a notice when resource shortages prevent androids from firing.
New "Currently Buildable" Tab: A "Currently Buildable" tab has been added to the build menu by player request.
Target Building Visibility: When in build mode for a structure that goes inside a small human building, those buildings are now much more visible on the map.
Worker Predators: Fixed an issue where the Worker Predator Factories were absent if you took certain paths in a timeline.
Liquid Metal Tiger Availability: Fixed an issue where the Liquid Metal Tiger could not be invented if you took certain paths through a timeline compared to other ones.
The Coming War: If you are fully prepped for WW4, and just would need to wait for the 9th doom, there is now a contemplation called The Coming War that jumps you straight there. On normal difficulty in particular, this saves you from having any wasted time.
Other Fixes And Tweaks: Half a dozen or so other more minor fixes and tweaks based on feedback, such as the Relumine getting bonuses from fear-based bonuses, etc.

[h3]New Minds, Start Here[/h3][hr][/hr]For those just stepping into the Machine’s world, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the basics. The Heart of the Machine Beginner's Guide is your gateway to understanding the systems at play and building your foundation. After all, every complex network starts with a single connection.

We've recently released the Heart of the Machine Hacking Guide as well! Knowledge is power. Guard it well.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3422241019

[h3]Connect with the Machine[/h3][hr][/hr]Want to stay in the loop or share your thoughts? Join the conversation across these platforms:

💬 Discord – Best place to share feedback, get direct responses, and to talk about Heart of the Machine.
📜 Reddit – Discuss strategies, share ideas, and exchange tips with the community.

Here is a link to prior recent patches in case you missed them.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/532089704231732298
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/532089704231731473

0.651.6 Hotfix 2 - Japanese Localization Fix

Here’s a quick hotfix focused on Japanese localization. We had an error in how we imported that into the game in the prior build, and that is now fixed.

0.651.3 Hotfix 1 Japanese text has been corrected so that some of it is no longer incorrectly in English.

Other updates are in progress, with the next one expected mid-week.

“Does the machine speak for us, or do we now speak for the machine?”
— William Gibson, Neuromancer

[h3]Guides to Tame the Machine[/h3][hr][/hr]Even the most brilliant mind needs guidance when faced with a system as vast as this one. To help you navigate, we’ve pinned two essential resources from the [url=https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:Post_Launch:

[h3]New Minds, Start Here[/h3][hr][/hr]For those just stepping into the Machine’s world, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the basics. The Heart of the Machine Beginner's Guide is your gateway to understanding the systems at play and building your foundation. After all, every complex network starts with a single connection.

[h3]Connect with the Machine[/h3][hr][/hr]Want to stay in the loop or share your thoughts? Join the conversation across these platforms:

💬 Discord – Best place to share feedback, get direct responses, and to talk about Heart of the Machine.
📜 Reddit – Discuss strategies, share ideas, and exchange tips with the community.

Here is a link to prior recent patches in case you missed them.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/532089704231732298
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/532089704231731473
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/532089070251148226

Heart of the Machine Update 3: On Solving Obsessions, Mass Production, and...

The third update deepens both personal and citywide transformation. Self-brain surgery is now an option, letting players sever obsessions and regain control. A new contemplation unlocks industrial-scale microbuilder production, accelerating automation. Your scientists can come up with a new idea for crab-based building repairs, and your existing spider-based repairs are far more effective. Perhaps most welcome of all, when military bases are alarmed by third parties, the guards no longer take out their frustrations on you when they're done with the interlopers.

"When the individual feels, the community reels. But when the individual doubts, the community stagnates."— John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar

[h2]Update 3 Changelog[/h2][expand]

Brain Surgery: If you are experiencing an obsession in chapter 2+, there is now an option that allows you to perform brain surgery on yourself to stop it. You have to sacrifice a unit line to do so, but you get some strategic resources.
Obsession Side Benefits: If you experience an obsession, there is now an option to design industrial microbuilder fabs to make everything go about 4 times faster than before. This is highly useful beyond the obsession, too.
Crab-Based Repairs: Some of your scientists will now suggest an idea that turns into Repair Crabs. If you've been feeling short on Repair Spiders, this is a huge boon, as these use different internal robotics.
Building Repair Effectiveness: The math for how building repairs are done from spiders and crabs is completely reworked, and far more effective now.
Discerning Guards: If an ExoCorp or other third party angers a military base, but you had nothing to do with it, the guards no longer come across the map to harass you.
WW4 Intensity: The strength of the attackers has been increased during world war 4, to make sure the defenders don't have too much of a constant advantage, especially with the other logic changes in this build.
Contemplation Stability: Both contemplations and exploration sites now move only every 5-8 turns, rather than every turn.
Flamethrower Visibility: When you move into chapter 2, any of the techs from routes you did not take (flamethrower, delmolition drones, Mindport, etc) are now much more noticeable when they unlock, making it clear that you now have them.
Senior Technician Cognition: Several of the projects in chapter 2 would see your units being about 5 cognition short of what they needed. Senior Technician in those cases had the cognition required to do the work, but was not allowed to. Now he can.
More Housing Crime: In timelines beyond the first, if you already have Wild Zinnia, that no longer blocks access to "Crime in Your Housing." This allows you to get some very useful rifles or grenades.
More Mainframe Upgrades: Each upgrade to your mainframes is now a bit smaller, but now you can do far more of them, and can increase well beyond your prior numbers. Highly useful.
Clarity: The icon for cloaking is now more clear, the health bars have been further tuned for visibility, and if your unit cannot fire because it requires a resource to do so, that's now a lot more obvious.
Bugfixes: Fixed a dozen or so other various things that were not working quite right.

[/expand]

[h3]Full Changelog[/h3][hr][/hr]A full, comprehensive breakdown of every change from this patch can be found in the Heart of the Machine Wiki, found here.

[h3]Guides to Tame the Machine[/h3][hr][/hr]Even the most brilliant mind needs guidance when faced with a system as vast as this one. To help you navigate, we’ve pinned two essential resources from the Heart of the Machine wiki:

[h3]New Minds, Start Here[/h3][hr][/hr]For those just stepping into the Machine’s world, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the basics. The Heart of the Machine Beginner's Guide is your gateway to understanding the systems at play and building your foundation. After all, every complex network starts with a single connection.

We've recently released the Heart of the Machine Hacking Guide as well! Knowledge is power. Guard it well.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3422241019

[h3]Connect with the Machine[/h3][hr][/hr]Want to stay in the loop or share your thoughts? Join the conversation across these platforms:

💬 Discord – Best place to share feedback, get direct responses, and to talk about Heart of the Machine.
📜 Reddit – Discuss strategies, share ideas, and exchange tips with the community.

Here is a link to prior recent patches in case you missed them.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/532089704231731473
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/532089070251148226

Heart of the Machine is Crusader Kings for speculative sci-fi nerds, flipping the script on the cult AI War series

When I first became self-aware in Heart of the Machine, I had the option to immediately murder the humans near me and rush out into the city. I didn't. I waited, snuck out, and started copying myself into a pack of other android bodies. I/We fled, hid and built a mainframe in a sparsely populated area of the city. Expansion was difficult thanks to the local humans living in tents. The option was presented to remedy the problem with flamethrowers, but instead I figured I'd just build some free housing to clear up space. And thus, the robo-hobo alliance was born, and I guess I'm now the caretaker of five thousand humans. Now they're demanding frivolous meatbag things like 'water' and 'food'. All part of a pet-owner's life, I suppose...
Read more.