Devolver announces marijuana tycoon simulator Weedcraft Inc

Devolver Digital has announced Weedcraft Inc, a management sim about growing and selling marijuana.

The announcement came in the form of a trailer, which intersperses in-game footage of Weedcraft with clips of various politicians and celebrities (including, yes, Elon Musk), discussing and, in Elon’s case, huffing the controversial narcotic.

Frankly, I found the video’s scattergun editing to distract from demonstrating how the game will actually work. Fortunately, Devolver added a few paragraphs to the video’s description which outlines what players can expect from Weedcraft:

“Weedcraft Inc explores the business of producing, breeding and selling weed in America, delving deep into the financial, political and cultural aspects of the country's complex relationship with this troublesome and promising plant,” Devolver states. “Would-be Mary Jane moguls will need to prioritize resources carefully as they manage the production and distribution of their weed. Cultivate killer plants, cross-breed them to create unique strains of the devil’s lettuce, hire and manage a growing staff, and be prepared to take on the competition.”

Devolver seems keen to push the political aspect of Weedcraft, with players able to deal with the legalities of selling marijuana in a variety of ways, from pushing politicians to legalise the drug (either for medicinal uses or just generally) or taking a more underground approach and paying the police to look the other way. These characters will have their own agendas as well, so you’ll have to balance the potential gains from these deals with the risks of the authorities cracking down on your enterprise.

What I’m intrigued by is the structure of the game. Weedcraft appears to take place in a 3D cityscape, where you can grow your independent drug empire from a garage greenhouse into a citywide network. The game isn’t a pure sandbox, however, possessing a narrative structure that will focus on different characters and offer a range of hand-crafted scenarios and challenges.

I’m always up for games that use mechanics and simulation to explore social or political issues, and Weedcraft certainly seems to be attempting to be more than just a straightforward Tycoon game. In any case, Weedcraft will blaze onto the PC in 2019. Check out the gallery of images below.

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Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.