Survival RTS with a Lego-inspired building system Cataclismo launches next month

Survival RTS Cataclismo has unveiled a new trailer and its early access date at the PC Gaming Show, looking to bring its fantasy apocalypse to Steam on July 16. The new trailer shows off the game's block-by-block building style with a suite of castles, towers, and walls all festooned with ornaments and battlements and soldiers firing down arrows and tossing things at the horde of monsters down below.

Cataclismo is a blend of tower defense and RTS developed by Digital Sun, the developer of Moonlighter and The Mageseeker. It's particularly notable for the way that it has you build some structures and establish your economy by mining resource deposits and producing units in traditional RTS style, but also has a modular building system. Your town and keep will need protection from a lot of walls and defenses, all of which are built with a Lego-inspired building system.

The new trailer shows off several nasty enemies we haven't seen before. In addition to the larger and smaller pale monsters, there's a new category of lumbering nasties with tumorous, fungal-looking growths protruding off their backs. There's also a shot, near the end, of a huge wormlike figure with a tiny humanoid torso sprouting off the top—ominous!

Cataclismo has occupied a top spot on my list of anticipated games since last year's demo showed off an in-progress build that had you lead a prophet across a rainy landscape of dilapidated ruins and build up an outpost to withstand attacks by surprise magic mutants. The building system showed its charms even then, encouraging you to focus on separate sections for soldiers that operated best from different heights and at different distances from the enemy.

The same goes for PC Gamer editor Robin Valentine, who spent time with Cataclismo earlier this year and found that even if he wasn't the finest castle architect he was having a lot of fun.

"The wide range of individual components let you put structures together piece by piece, like playing with a huge mediaeval Lego set. Clever players have the freedom to go wild with creativity and style, erecting castles that aren't just aesthetically pleasing, but functional too, taking advantage of all the nuances of Cataclismo's combat system. Me? I sort of bodge stuff together and hope it works," he said.

You can find Cataclismo on Steam, where it will enter Early Access on July 16, 2024.

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.