Pharoah: A New Era is a remake of the 1999 historical city builder

Pharaoh was a 1999 city builder that tasked you with building, maintaining and protecting an ancient Egyptian metropolis. Developed by Impressions Games, the studio responsible for Caesar 3 and Zeus, it had some neat features: the Nile river factored heavily into your town planning decisions, and it even had naval battles.

Now that game is getting a modern remake. Pharaoh: A New Era was announced today at Gamescom 2020, and it's no simple up-res. As the trailer above demonstrates, studio Triskell Interactive is remaking the original from scratch: it'll support 4K, and the gameplay itself will be renovated to fit modern standards.

Like the original, there's a campaign mode with upwards of 50 missions taking place over 4,000 years, and there's a map and mission editor, too. The 2000 expansion Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile will be built into the game, and there's a free build mode, if you want to relax and just make something pretty.

And you'll probably need that leisurely alternative at times, because it's an extremely busy game, as our retrospective feature warned back in 2017. You'll be plotting your city, but you'll also be managing the economy, trade, agriculture and lots (lots) more.

Pharaoh: A New Era already has a Steam page, but its release is expected some time in 2021.

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.