Published May 3, 2026, 9:00 PM EDT
Chris is a Gaming Editor at ScreenRant. He has been a professional writer since 2009, and has written for top TV, comics, movie, and video game outlets like Engadget, Polygon, Destructoid, and more. He brings with him an expertise in every game genre, no matter how niche or mainstream.
You may know him as the former Managing/Reviews Editor of Destructoid, where he published hundreds of game reviews across every genre, including MMOs, sports games, and Metroidvanias.
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On Steam, you can pretty much come up with any combination of genres and find a game for it. While Harvest Moon was one of the first popular farming simulators, Stardew Valley really brought the genre back to the forefront after an explosive run in the 2010s, well into the 2020s. It's incredible how far it's come, and all the multimedia projects it's spawned, including a concert series.
Because of that boom, it can be tough to sift through all the farming simulators to try and nail down what you're looking for, but that's where curation comes in. At this point, you can find farm simulators that also double as a murder-mystery game. The sky is the limit, and developers are pushing the envelope all the time.
Thanks to a new Steam event, a new contender has popped into frame, and it's free to try. If you're a fan of Stardew Valley or Wall-E, it's worth a look.
Thanks to the Post-Apocalyptic Festival on Steam, Hello World is now playable. You can grab a demo now off the storefront before its eventual 2027 release and take it for a spin. You play as a refrigerator with a machete, as you build a colony for humans and robots alike in a bioengineered jungle.
That's a selling point all on its own, but here's a brief look at what you can expect: "A colony sim with turn-based tactical combat, set in a lush, living apocalypse. Build a community of humans and robots while a bioengineered jungle devours the world around you and rogue machines fight you for what's left."
Hello World sports turn-based tactical combat, robot recruitment, the ability to recycle nearly everything in the game, and building components. It's a tall order trying to juggle all these genres, but it seems to have things figured out at a foundational level, with plenty of time left before release.
The idea of a constantly dangerous world is the most interesting selling point: "The jungle grows in real-time, adapts to what gets built, and reclaims anything left undefended. A lush, green apocalypse that never stops pushing back." There's a danger there of making things feel repetitive, but it adds a lot of character to the game's worlds.
If you grab the Hello World demo now, you'll get a chance to try it out before it releases in 2027. Given how ambitious it is, this is worth putting on your watchlist. More farming simulator games will also no doubt come out between now and then, so you can get it on your radar sooner.
Steam is always evolving, whether it's about quality-of-life software enhancements or the studios that release games on it. One thing's for sure, you can find something unique if you know where to look.
Brand Valve
Original Release Date September 12, 2003
English (US) ·