14 DAY TRIAL // Offworld Trading Company has just gotten its first gameplay trailer, showing the game in action for the first time since its announcement.
Galactic Civilizations III maker Stardock Entertainment announced that it would be unveiling a number of new products from its satellite studios in the first few months of the year, and it seems that Offworld Trading Company is one of them.
The game was initially announced last year, and now we're finally getting to see how it actually looks being played, complete with some informative commentary from one of the developers.
The project is being led by Civilization IV designer Soren Johnson at his studio Mohawk Games, and so far it looks quite promising.
Offworld Trading Company is a real-time strategy game concerned more with economics and expansion rather than militaristic conquest. The game doesn't even feature unit building, just laying out bases and manipulating the market, and indirectly messing with your opponents' well-being by conducting corporate espionage and hiring pirates to do shady stuff.
The gameplay shows some fast-paced cutthroat economic competition, complete with AI skirmish modes and online multiplayer, so there is a ton of interactivity in spite of the fact that you can't build tanks and blow stuff up.
Experimenting with the formula
Offworld Trading Company seeks to take real-time strategy games into a brand new direction by making money both the deadliest weapon and toughest defense.
The game takes place on Mars, where all the mega corporations settled after Earth's resources were depleted. The red planet's abundant resources and the wild dreams of countless entrepreneurs make for a very competitive environment, and Mohawk Games aims to offer strategy fans the ultimate in market simulation.
The player-driven market is the foundation of the game, where gamers can buy and sell pretty much everything, from resources and materials to the food and water colonists need in order to survive and thrive.
In addition to a robust economic engine, the game also features a ton of market manipulation options, as well as the option to build up capital and access offworld markets.
The developer is interested in getting the community involved in the creation of the game as soon as possible, so Offworld Trading Company is coming to Steam Early Access on February 12.
