Heart of the Machine News

Nominate Heart of the Machine for the Steam Awards

This has been a whirlwind year, hasn’t it? Both for gaming as a whole, and for Heart of the Machine.

The 2025 Steam Awards have begun, and I view them with a bit of trepidation. I’ve had games on Steam since 2009, but I’ve never gotten involved with awards before.

[h3]Please Consider Nominating Heart of the Machine For Outstanding Story-Rich Game[/h3][hr][/hr]My personal nerves aside, Heart of the Machine is doing some really unique things in how it handles story. Over 27% of Steam reviews have mentioned the story or writing, which really makes me happy.

I’d be honored if you’d consider nominating the game in the “Outstanding Story-Rich Game” category. Your nomination can help spread the word about Heart of the Machine and introduce new players to its unique world of robots and apocalypses.

[h3]Heart Of The Machine’s Unique Story Structure[/h3][hr][/hr]This game is a lot of genres at once. It’s very systems-driven, but also very story-driven. I’ve been chasing this idea for more than a decade.

My favorite thing about this game is that there’s no single end goal. Most stories have some sort of external challenge that, alongside whatever else the characters do, needs to be handled. This game has lots of external challenges, but none of them supersede the rest. You may be working alongside the humans of your city in some fashion, or exterminating them.

I find this really energizing, because it means that there truly is no one best path through the game, and there also won’t be any universal “golden ending.” This has a major positive impact on mechanics and balance variety, too.

[h3]A Forest Of Shrubberies[/h3][hr][/hr]If you’re curious about how this unique structure came about, it dates back to me wondering “what if individual planets in the AI War series had their own storylines?”

A lot of games have branching narratives, but those tend to last for the entire game. In other words, you are pursuing an end goal, and you have some branches along the way. It’s easy to visualize this sort of structure as a single tree -- a strong trunk leading to a given endpoint, and then various branches that lead off into optional things you can also do.

Heart of the Machine is very different, because the individual “branching trees” are much smaller and also more numerous. Rather than picturing this as a single big tree, I think of this as a dozen smaller shrubberies. In other words, there are smaller storylines that have a central point to them, and there are branches to those, but they’re fairly disconnected from one another.

That sounds like it wouldn’t work very well, but that’s where the central map and simulation come in. Since there is a single persistent map, and the game remembers what you’ve done in the past, any particular storyline you engage with changes the status quo for the city from then on. This in turn makes “other shrubberies” harder or easier (or just plain different) to deal with, since they’re all in a shared space rather than being isolated from one another.

[h3]Hybrid Stories Are Cool (And I Want More Of Them)[/h3][hr][/hr]I’ve been struggling to create this sort of interplay between narrative and gameplay since at least 2010. I took a number of big swings at the idea, and it never really landed until now.

There was never really a template to follow for this sort of thing, because most other games use “loopback narratives” or manpower-intensive trees, or similar. Colony sims partly tackle the problem, but they wind up being more systems-focused (not in a bad way, just different). Immersive sims have their own take, but again tend to be focused on a central goal.

There’s been a ton of innovation in the last few years, and new innovations in story and systems gameplay come out every year. My humble opinion is that this is one of them. I’d love to see some other studios approach their own stories in this hybrid fashion. Now that I’ve done my own version of it, there’s plenty of room for other devs to make the idea their own!

[h3]Endgames And 1.0[/h3][hr][/hr]Heart of the Machine launched into Early Access in January, and since then there have been 40+ major updates to the game. I’m currently working on the “Tier 3 goals” that make for various endgames, and the 1.0 milestone for the game is rapidly approaching.

I have to say, this game would have turned out very different if it were not for Early Access. As proud as I am of having come up with all the “forest of shrubberies” design style and so forth, the game wouldn’t remotely resemble what it is now without all the feedback from players.

The various endgames in particular are turning out way more systems-focused than I ever would have thought they would, and that’s in large part due to player commentary. Trying to find the right balance between systems-driven and story-driven gameplay in this game has been a challenge (again, because there’s no template to follow), and players have been my guiding light on that front. The way the game is shaping up is not something I could have ever come up with without so much feedback from players. Thank you so much!

[h3]In Summary[/h3][hr][/hr]I’d really like to thank everyone for all the support the game has already received. I’d also love to have your nomination this year, if you’re so inclined. To nominate the game, click the “Nominate” button that’s part of this post to submit your nomination. The result isn’t the important part; I don’t expect to win (I mean, it would be nice), but I’m deeply grateful for every vote.

I really can’t thank you all enough for everything you’ve done over the past year!

– Chris, Arcen Games

Update 46: Obsession For A Friend

[p]Second update of the day! That sort of cadence pretty much only happens right after a game launch or during a sprint. This is a sprint.

There's some new features in here, and a fix that I wanted to get out sooner than later.

If you’ve spent time with Heart of the Machine and want to leave a review, that’d be appreciated. No need to say more than you mean, but if you’ve been meaning to write one, I’d be grateful. Steam reviews carry weight. For a project like this — developed by a single person over many years, every review makes a difference.[/p][p]Honest thoughts are what matter. Whatever your experience has been, sharing it helps. It’s a powerful way to have your voice heard and contributes to how future patches are prioritized and addressed.[/p][p]Thanks for reading and for playing.
[/p]
[expand]
[h2]Update 46 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]New Features[/h3]

Loathsomeness: All of the structures that you can build now have a Loathsomeness rating from 0 to 10. There is an analysis lens option that shows you these values on the map. This is largely going to be for how independent third parties would reasonably feel about what you're building. Primarily the space nations. Under normal circumstances, this doesn't do anything at all. For the upcoming Interstellar Incident and Stars Beyond Reach T2/T3 goals, it's going to matter quite a bit, though.
BETA: Second Branch Of Civil Spycraft Act 2 Now Available: The "just hack it" route when talking to a character in the beta branch, during act two of civil spycraft, is now available for beta testing. This involves the second Obsession in the game, which is something people have been asking for for a while.
Beta Branch On Steam: The beta branch for the game no longer requires a password. This makes it a lot easier to opt in if you want to.

[h3]Balance[/h3]

Managerial Living: Dramatically redistributed where the housing for managerial class residents are in the city. They still work in the same variety of locations, but they have now moved out of mixed-use structures, military bases, farms, and the suburbs. They're now much more concentrated in executive estates and other similar high rises, plus luxury apartments. Thematically, this actually makes them a lot safer from the common people, even compared to the scientist class, because it keeps them from being spread out into so many low-density locations that would be hard for the usual soldiers and robotic guards to protect. The total number of spots holding managers has condensed from 2000+ to more like 500, for example. Gameplay-wise, cough, kind of the opposite is true. If anyone were ever to do something to the managerial class, hypothetically, then it would take less time because there would only be a quarter as many spots to go.
"Scaling Up Microbuilders" Limited To Slums Obsession: This contemplation now only happens during the "Frustration Mounts" project, not during any obsession in general. That's explicitly related to that project, so it only makes sense there.
Serial Brain Surgery: Now that there are multiple obsessions: if you previously used brain surgery in a timeline to forget something during an obsession, then you can't forget that same thing again to end a new obsession.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Missing Middle Managers: Fixed an issue where if you were trying to approach the espia telecom managers, but you had previously killed 5 or more wealthy people in the "people watching" project, then it wouldn't work.

[/expand][p]Full notes here.

[/p][h3]Connect with the Machine[/h3][hr][/hr][p]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.[/p]

Update 45: How Do You Do, Fellow Executives

[p]This is an update focused on items from recent feedback from players. A couple of them are rather amusing.

I'm still focused on my big sprint toward the Tier 3 goals, but I'm recognizing that I may wind up doing more intermediate builds (largely for purposes of the beta branch getting tested) than I thought. I honestly am not sure at the moment. I'm just kind of following whatever feels the most comfortable as I go. I have a set list of things I want to accomplish over the next months, but I try not to force myself on any specific order. Having that freedom feels nicer and gets everything done faster.

If you’ve spent time with Heart of the Machine and want to leave a review, that’d be appreciated. No need to say more than you mean, but if you’ve been meaning to write one, I’d be grateful. Steam reviews carry weight. For a project like this — developed by a single person over many years, every review makes a difference.[/p][p]Honest thoughts are what matter. Whatever your experience has been, sharing it helps. It’s a powerful way to have your voice heard and contributes to how future patches are prioritized and addressed.[/p][p]Thanks for reading and for playing.
[/p]
[expand]
[h2]Update 45 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Clarity[/h3]

Investigation Percentages: When you're investigating something as part of a project, it now gives you an accurate percentage completed on the project itself, rather than sticking at 0% and then eventually jumping to completion.
Homo Grandien Aftermath Text: Revised this to be more focused on how humans messed things up, rather than the ethical implications.
Bionic Dues Clarity: This goal now notes that there are multiple paths to creating the cult, but that the nature of the cult is the same regardless of how you create it. The aftermath text now no longer mentions this, as it felt out of place there.
Bionic Secret Aftermath Text:
Corrected one spelling item here, as well as revised the text to no longer have the machine intelligence caring about the fact that the rebels didn't share with it for free. It would have found that suspicious.
WW4 Aftermath Text: Improved clarity of the wording.
Military Invasion Aftermath Text: Improved the wording to no longer include a typo, as well as not to be sometimes incorrect if you're in the International Scrutiny doom set.
Collapse A Fedcorp Aftermath Text: Improved the flow of the wording.
Executive-Tomb Aftermath Text: Improved the flow of the wording.
Vorsiber Ends A Civil War Aftermath Text: Improved the text to be a bit more mysterious.
Mech Equipment Renames: Shoulder-Mounted Rockets for mechs are now called Auxiliary Rocket Mounts, Shoulder-Mounted Lasers for them are now called Auxiliary Laser Mounts, and Infrasonic Loudspeakers for mechs are now called Infrasonic Amplifiers. This makes it so that in upgrade lists they actually show up properly, and since they have different names, they don't look like incorrect duplicates.

[h3]Balance[/h3]

Hello Fellow Humans: Units that are supposed to be blending in with humans can no longer use saw arms in particular. This made for some pretty funny memes, but stretched credulity to say the least.
Yes I'm Really Angry: Finishing Civil Spycraft (on the beta branch) now grants +5 Hatred of Vorsiber. When you see it, you'll know why.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

Typo Fix: Fixed a typo in calling to Vericorp.
Clone Allegiance: Fixed a minor issue where clones of your units were not properly tied to your shell company if they were the sort that should have been. This didn't actually affect anything right now, but might in the future.
Achievement Fix: War Crime Blackjack" is now properly possible.
Typical Middle Managers: Fixed an issue where middle managers, out of touch with the state of the city, could require you to do something that was impossible in order to complete their quest. They now have a better grasp on reality.

Update 44: Civil Spycraft Act One

[p]This build includes the first half, roughly, of Civil Spycraft. I wasn't intending to release that in parts, but it turns out it works well that way. The beta branch (English only) includes 95% of the second act of Civil Spycraft if you want to see that. This build looks small based on the release notes, but there's a large amount of gameplay and story in here.

You may notice I'm slowing down a bit lately with the releases, but that's actually because I'm working on really large pieces of content. Expect that to continue for another 4 weeks or so. I'm wrapping up the last of Civil Spycraft, and then diving headfirst into a bunch of Tier 3 goals for the first time. That's all very exciting, but it makes it harder to do smaller intermediate releases. You'll see about one per week during this period, and you'll also notice that I'm a lot less responsive to feature requests or bugs that aren't severe.

After this sprint, I'm going to be back onto feature requests, lesser bugs, and so forth. Sometimes these things come in waves!

If you’ve spent time with Heart of the Machine and want to leave a review, that’d be appreciated. No need to say more than you mean, but if you’ve been meaning to write one, I’d be grateful. Steam reviews carry weight. For a project like this — developed by a single person over many years, every review makes a difference.[/p][p]Honest thoughts are what matter. Whatever your experience has been, sharing it helps. It’s a powerful way to have your voice heard and contributes to how future patches are prioritized and addressed.[/p][p]Thanks for reading and for playing.
[/p]
[expand]
[h2]Update 44 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Civil Spycraft Act One[/h3]

"Attempt To Restore Order" During The Civil War: Later this will be noted as starting Civil Spycraft, but for now it does not have that label since you can only get through act one. Regardless, you can go far enough with this that you make some surprisingly major changes to the city, involve your cult, and can end the civil war.
"Two Branches: The first act of Civil Spycraft has two completely independent branches that involve two different fedcorps. They are mechanically distinct, give you some two separate angles on the story, and also have their own separate major useful buffs/jobs that come out of them.
Two New Achievements: I'm not saying much because of spoilers, really.
Mysteries Unresolved: The first act of Civil Spycraft does kind of deepen a few mysteries, and act two (on the beta branch now, or will be more widely available in 2ish weeks) ties those up.

[h3]Other Changes[/h3]

Make A Shell Company: If you somehow get to the Organometallic Form project (for creating mimics) without ever having created a shell company, there is now an Establish Shell Company project that pops up with guidance on that.
Resource Cost Clarity: Improved the readability of StreetSense project actions when they cost one or more resources.
Aftermath Text For Goals: There have been notable updates to the post-goal summary screen. It now shows what resources you gained from that goal, and which paths of the goal you completed. In English, it also then has aftermath text for every goal except for the "Pressuring The City" side goal (which doesn't need aftermath text). This is something that will be coming to other languages in about two weeks. You can then click through from this first screen with this new info to see the same mix of stats and possible achievements that you would see in the past. In both of these screens, the header also now shows the name of the goal that you completed, and lets you see its tooltip simply by hovering that header.

Update 43: Opening The Armory

[p]I'm very excited about the sheer number of new options for you to customize your units in this build! This one has 3 new augments for androids, 2 augments for vehicles, the first 5 armors for vehicles, 6 new augments for mechs, and 5 new armors for mechs (each in two variants for small and large mechs). Overall, 26 new pieces of equipment.

There are also a number of units that have additional equipment slots, and various other balance items and bugfixes. The names of the equipment won't be localized to non-English languages until next week, but since that winds up mostly being cosmetic (since all the stats are in your respective languages), I decided to go ahead and bring this out now.

In other news, I've been working hard on Civil Spycraft and some other late-game content. Part of that just went to the localization teams, and that same part is now out on the beta branch here. If you want to check that out, you can use the password previewterminator to opt into the beta. All of those bits are only in English until the official launch, though.

If you’ve spent time with Heart of the Machine and want to leave a review, that’d be appreciated. No need to say more than you mean, but if you’ve been meaning to write one, I’d be grateful. Steam reviews carry weight. For a project like this — developed by a single person over many years, every review makes a difference.[/p][p]Honest thoughts are what matter. Whatever your experience has been, sharing it helps. It’s a powerful way to have your voice heard and contributes to how future patches are prioritized and addressed.[/p][p]Thanks for reading and for playing.
[/p]
[expand]
[h2]Update 43 Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Clarity[/h3]

"Obscured By Clothing" Removed: This perk is now gone, instead with all of its versions just being Blending In. This is simpler for players, and less clutter visually.
Final Doom Wording Clarity: The in-game text now makes it clearer that you'll be dealing with a "post-apocalyptic aftermath" rather than not specifying a noun.
Investigation Clarity: When you're doing one investigation that requires work over time, it no longer blocks other investigations that just require site visits.
Investigation Snapping: Improved the snapping of the cursor to nearby investigation targets.

[h3]Balance[/h3]

Meaningful Social Change: Rather than failing this project when you start doing For The Sake Of Those Bound, it instead shifts so that the percentage goes up some based on what you've done in that other project, and then is completed as a success when you complete that other project. There's a nontrivial amount of strategic resources this grants you, as well as being clearer.
Buff To Nuclear Power Skimmers: These now generate 100k more power each.
Sledge Equipment Slots: They now have two armor slots rather than one (it layers them on top of each other), and also an augment slot (they previously did not have this at all). This is a HUGE buff, so they can be a real walking tank.
Predator Augment Slot: They now have an augment slot for the first time. Less dramatic than the Sledge boosts, but it's still an interesting buff.
Unwaveringly Aggressive: The Oath Of Pacifism now can't be used by Predators, Harbingers, or Carvers. This is mostly thematic.
Unchangeable Cognition: Sledge, Predator, Keanu, and Carver are now barred from using Additional CPU, Smart Pistol, Book Of Rhetoric, Spooky Nonsense Generator, and Propaganda Circuit. This is mostly thematic.
Infallibly Kind: Sledges cannot use Rage Circuit or Saw Arms, which they otherwise would now be getting. This is mostly thematic.
Debate Seeds Shift Over Time: Every turn, the set of what comes up in a given debate scenario now changes, rather than being locked to whatever you initially find. This makes it so that if you run into an insane scenario (the third writ is notorious for this), then you're able to try something different.
Armor Slot For Bastion: That lets it join the foundry, troopship, mindport, and mech carrier in having armor, which is new for vehicles this build.
Doubled Mech Carrier Armor: This ultimate vehicle now has 2 armor slots, rather than 1, making them kind of like Sledges in terms of how beefy they are from a vehicle standpoint.
Buffed Vehicle CPUs: The Additional CPU equipment for vehicles now has a base of 60 engineering rather than 40, to match the android version.
Loudspeakers Removed From Shoulders: Infrasonic Loudspeakers on androids can now be used by any android with augment slots, not just those that can handle shoulder mounts.

[h3]New Android Equipment[/h3]

Hydraulic Musculature: Available at intelligence class 6. Augment that increases intimidation by 24, strength by 60, and gives recoil suppression.
Saw Arms: Available at intelligence class 6. Augment that increases attack power by only 10, fear attack power by 70, and intimidation by 140.
Quantum CPU: Available for Souldroids when at intelligence class 4. Augment that increases cognition by the same amount as the regular "Additional CPU" (including any after-market upgrades), and then increases both hacking and net control by 60 each. VERY useful.

[h3]New Vehicle Equipment[/h3]

Ultralight Components: Available at intelligence class 3. Augment that increases attack range by 16, move range by 30, and reduces health by 180. And yes, this stacks. Super useful on units like Iris.
Drone Dock: Available at intelligence class 3. Augment that increases attack range by 20 and drone quality by 100, but reduces attack power by 100. Incredibly useful for Mindports, among others.
Chromium Plating: Good health. New armor gained when you get Ultralight Plating for androids.
Depleted Uranium: Beefy but slowing. New armor gained when you get 35mm Halfplate for androids.
Heptagonal Tungsten: More action points! New armor gained when you get Tungsten Plate for androids.
Active Graphene Mesh: Some health, but a lot more movement. New armor gained when you get the android version of this.
Technologist Hardpoints: Not much health, but a ton of drone quality, scavenging skill, and engineering skill. New armor gained when you get Diamond Nanothread Weave for androids.

[h3]New Mech Equipment[/h3]

Basic Augments: From the start of the game, there is now an Additional CPU and Optical Processing Priority augments available for mechs, matching those that are available on androids (unlike the vehicular variants, there is cognition added for the CPUs).
Drone Dock: Available at intelligence class 3. Augment that increases attack range by 20 and drone quality by 150, but reduces attack power by 100. This is a more extreme counterpart of the new vehicular augment by the same name.
Shoulder-Mounted Rockets: Available at intelligence class 3. Augment gives attack power, range, and intimidation. Everything but the range is doubled from its android counterpart with the same name.
Shoulder-Mounted Lasers: Available when its android counterpart is unlocked. Augment gives huge attack power, lowered range, and huge armor piercing. Everything but the range is doubled from its android counterpart.
Infrasonic Loudspeaker: Available when its android counterpart is unlocked. Augment gives a bit of argument attack power, notable attack range, and huge fear attack power. Everything but the range is doubled from its android counterpart.
Chromium Plating: Really good health. Large and small mech armor variants gained when you get Ultralight Plating for androids.
Incandescent Uranium: Good health, great intimidation. Large and small mech armor variants gained when you get 35mm Halfplate for androids.
Heptagonal Tungsten: More action points! Large and small mech armor variants gained when you get Tungsten Plate for androids.
Active Graphene Mesh: Some health, but a lot more movement. Large and small mech armor variants gained when you get the android version of this.
Cubic Boron Rails: Tiny health, but solid drone quality, and extremely high attack range increase. Large and small mech armor variants gained when you get Diamond Nanothread Weave for androids.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

But You Promised You Wouldn't Complain: Fixed an issue where the tungsten methylator was complaining on your HUD in the TPS Report category when it should not have been.
Armored Executive Was Lonely: Fixed an issue where if you were in the setup phase in a fresh timeline and had chosen a start with the shell company involved, then the Senior Technician and Economic Transport would not be unlocked until you ended the first turn. They are now available right away.