Money is the key to happiness (and a pet god) in greedy city builder Gold Gold Adventure Gold

I've always thought the adage 'money can't buy happiness' was a bunch of rubbish. Aside from the obvious basics, money buys all my frivolous comforts like overpriced coffee, junk from digital cash shops, and the occasional Steam sale splurge. Gold Gold Adventure Gold encourages that streak of greed, and its PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted trailer offered a tease of what spoils lie ahead in its early access debut next year.

Gold Gold Adventure Gold from developer Can Can Can a Man—say that five times fast, I dare you—is a hodgepodge of weirdly specific influences with a lofty vision that, somehow, all makes complete sense to me. It's a city builder, sure, but its guiding philosophies dabble in the weird. The goals here are far more outlandish than village appeasement and micromanaging traffic flows.

Instead, your focus is most notably on the duties expected of someone raising a pet god beast—whatever that may entail. Well, it's that, plus keeping your growing village of subordinate units in line.

Gold Gold Adventure Gold - A God Beast shoots a beam at an enemy — (Image credit: Can Can Can a Man)

Today's trailer explains a little further, taking a quick look at Adventure Gold's building mechanics through the lens of its close-quarters camera. That perspective feels kind of strange to me for something with RTS-styled units, but the art makes it work. Dealing with these guys looks like a bulk of the day-to-day, so might as well get up close as they're assigned all manner of missions and even help with caring for your big, mythical beasty.

Gold Gold Adventure Gold is Cult of the Lamb-style creepy, but with a visual direction not so obviously twisted. It looks cheerier in that regard, like Dark Cloud. The differences lead you down a path to more tangible riches, setting up shop around a dungeon to profit from its bountiful monster resources. The more money your fantasy capitalism machine squeezes from the land, the more stereotypical, RPG-styled adventurers show up eager to accept a quest for your cause.

The specifics of that cause seem like our biggest unknown. The crux of what I've gleaned is I've got a giant beasty to manage, Tamagotchi-style, and it ain't cheap. I figure all the greed, local conquest, and the pet god won't make me a particularly likable individual, either, so there's bound to be some bad blood brewing somewhere.

Gold Gold Adventure Gold doesn't have a release date yet, but is set to launch in early 2025. You can wishlist it now for a notification when it makes its early access debut on Steam.

Andrea has been covering games for nearly a decade, picking up bylines at IGN, USA Today, Fanbyte, and Destructoid before joining the PC Gamer team in 2025. She's got a soft spot for older RPGs and is willing to try just about anything with a lovey-dovey "I can fix them" romance element. Her weekly to-do always includes a bit of MMO time, endlessly achievement hunting and raiding in Final Fantasy 14. Outside of those staples, she's often got a few survival-crafting games on rotation and loves a good scare in co-op horror games.