Ahead of its January launch, one of the best city builders around is getting a free demo that 'allows you to play endlessly' with some of the new features coming next year

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Medeival city builder Foundation will exit nearly five years of early access development when it releases on January 31, 2025. To celebrate, the developers have released a free demo that lets you check out the game's unique gridless playstyle that has you zone areas for your villagers to make their own choices in and forge their own roads across, while you focus more attention on customizing the town's biggest buildings like churches, castles, forts, and monasteries.

PC Gamer writer Chris Livingston has previously called Foundation one of the best city-builders around. He's probably right, by my reckoning.

The full release in January will also have a wholly revamped art direction for Foundation. The environment will be more dynamic, with new lighting and environmental effect changes alongside revamped edges for the maps. It'll also have new assets for many key features like manor houses and castles alongside lots of new animations for your villagers. Oh, and every single building in the game has been revamped, and some can even be expanded with new parts. There'll also be a photo mode with dynamic, cosmetic time of day switcher.

Developer Polymorph Games says that the demo release "allows you to play endlessly with a selection of first-tier content, providing an exclusive preview of certain features, including Housing, Trade, Fortifications, Patrols, Environment overhaul, a vastly improved UI, and many more improvements."

You can find Foundation on Steam alongside its demo. Foundation is currently $30, and is on sale for $22.50 until December 18... when it'll increase in price to $35 to reflect the launch version.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.