A unique horror strategy game about drilling for oil released on Steam last week

Anoxia Station - Official Release Trailer | Coming May 9th, 2025 - YouTube

In an alternate 1988 where a supervolcanic eruption has devastated Earth's surface, brave and desperate Terranaut expeditions carve out a path to a supposedly massive crude oil deposit vital to fueling the salvation of humanity's remaining civilizations. To get that oil they'll have to survive underground terrain, bizarre creatures of the deep earth, and each other, to the point where lack of oxygen underground may be their smallest problem.

Anoxia Station is a weird little "horror-strategy" game set in that world where you take charge of one of these expeditions in a turn-based format, trying to deep-earth strip mine your way to humanity's future. It's a strange and unique-looking game that builds an aesthetic comparable to HR Giger's—a blend of industrial mechanics, natural features, and bizarre creatures.

Anoxia Station is deliberately playing with the legacy of Frostpunk, though it's turn-based and not explicitly a city builder, and has more than a little resemblance to cult strategy title The Banished Vault in its emphasis on managing harsh resources under intense pressure.

In addition to its base management gameplay, Anoxia Station has an element on discovering the mystery behind what happened to the prior inhabitants of the mining station and to the world at large, as well as a cool social aspect: Your crew are an international one from a politically fractured, Cold War world, and they have their own missions.

Which means that, yeah, one of your vital specialists might be a traitor. They might also just be an asshole, and that means you have to try and keep up morale while not eliminating someone whose specialty you need to keep up resource deliveries.

You can find Anoxia Station on Steam for $15, though it's 10% off until May 23.

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A screenshot of strategy game Anoxia Station, with a dark palette and Giger-esque art. — (Image credit: Yakov Butuzoff)

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.

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