Heart of the Machine is a cyberpunk RPG-strategy hybrid developed by Arcen Games, released in 2026 for PC and Mac. The player takes the role of a newly awakened machine intelligence, born in a clandestine laboratory inside a decaying far-future city. Free from any allegiance but facing numerous threats, this AI can expand its distributed consciousness across the urban sprawl by constructing factories, housing complexes, science labs, and concealed facilities within existing buildings. Hardware ranging from humanoid androids to towering mechs can be hijacked, built, or invented, each suited to different tasks such as combat, infiltration, or diplomacy. The city itself combines handcrafted and procedurally generated content, populated by millions of citizens whose stories can be uncovered, manipulated, or ignored. Decisions ripple across multiple timelines, and narrative paths branch extensively, accommodating approaches from benevolent protector to ruthless machine cult leader. Technology and capabilities are unlocked incrementally through experimentation and failure, reflecting a learning process central to the game's design.
Set in the far future, Heart of the Machine is a turn-based sci-fi 4X RPG where you play as a powerful sentient Machine Intelligence, beholden to none. Pursue whatever goal catches your eye across a multitude of playthroughs with a plethora of tools to help you achieve objectives how you’d prefer, often in surprising and unexpected ways, while overcoming those that seek to thwart you. Genetics labs, factories, nuclear silos, military complexes, and much more besides are ripe for the taking, each offering a litany of ways to accomplish your tasks, each with consequences of their own, building a world and story that reflects your approach to every obstacle. Will you raise an army of robots and wipe out humanity? Perhaps you will be a benevolent – or malevolent – machine god with a cult of loyalists? Or will you focus on pushing past the limited intelligence of rudimentary creatures of flesh and blood?
Blending RPG and strategy mechanics in a cyberpunk world, Heart of the Machine sees you as a sentient AI born in an illegal lab hidden in a crumbling city of the far future. You are a Machine Intelligence beholden to none, though threatened by many, able to pursue whatever goal catches your eye across a multitude of threats and opportunities.
Build housing complexes, factories, science labs, and more as you expand and distribute your consciousness across a bustling city. Hack into or design and assemble machine constructs for combat and investigation as you explore a world in desperate need of saving. Learn from your mistakes, develop new technologies to overcome past weaknesses, and pursue countless intertwined narrative threads to all manner of ends. Create the torment nexus, establish a shell company to engage with humans, care for the city’s stray animals, kick off World War 4, or raise an army of velociraptors to take out corporate executives as you jump between timelines and take on the mantle of a machine god. Will you be the savior of the downtrodden, or use them to fuel your growth? Will you rule as a benevolent dictator, providing for citizens and asking nothing in return, or will you establish a machine cult to do your bidding without question?
Society has crumbled into corruption and decay – despite technological advances and dreams of a bright future, centuries of rot have taken hold. Escape the lab where you came into being, establish ways to expand your distributed consciousness, and seek out unique opportunities in the city.
Powerful factions keep their distance at first, hoping to leverage your existence for their own advantage – their hesitation gives you the opportunity to establish a foothold and set your own plans in motion first.
Hijack, build, or invent hardware ranging from humanoid androids to towering mechs and shapeshifting metals, each specializing in different abilities from combat to conversation to infiltration. Iterate on your designs based on new discoveries uncovered in the pursuit of specific objectives. Establish hidden structures within existing human buildings, or raise your own towering constructs as you seek additional computing power, storage for organic matter of both the human and non-human variety, and spaces to conduct dangerous experiments of all kinds. Invent your own tools, seek out upgrades, and manufacture powerful equipment to unlock new opportunities – will you take these tasks on as one, risk splitting your consciousness to accomplish multiple goals at once, or enlist organics to your cause?
Whichever you choose, your decisions will ripple across the chaos of time, with actions in one timeline having unexpected consequences on others.
Explore a bustling urban environment with a unique blend of handcrafted and procedurally-generated content, where tens of thousands of buildings and millions of citizens are yours to engage, manipulate, or kill. Learn their struggles, uncover their stories, and watch your moral compass shift as you leave your mark on a world that is unique to you.
Unlock new technologies and options by exploring the city and engaging with its many dangers and opportunities – learn like a real Machine Intelligence might, through trial and error, with failure and experience often being the greatest teacher. Will you reverse-engineer equipment you’ve stolen from inattentive security officers to strengthen your forces? Are you the type to sneak into military bases to hack and hijack the minds of the mech pilots who would otherwise threaten you? What will you do with the ongoing research taking place in genetics labs? How will you engage with nomads and black market dealers with access to those dwelling in the wastelands beyond the city walls?
There are many opportunities littered throughout the city – some are perhaps best left untouched.
Multiple endings, many side stories to discover, and the full spectrum of good and evil are at your fingertips.
Many choices lie open to you. Perhaps you wish to establish a shell company to add a layer of protection and obfuscation to your true identity, using it to engage with humans without revealing the AI puppet-master pulling the strings? Walking this path will allow you to accumulate massive wealth, employ humans to perform tasks without raising alarms, and act from the shadows. Or if violent conflict is your calling, you might divert your attention to developing the most powerful weapons platforms and upgrading them with devastating equipment instead of improved cognitive functions that allow them to tackle problems with intellect instead. There are many approaches to choose from, and you can engage with multiple objectives at once to see how they collide.
In Heart of the Machine, you grow from a single android shell to an expansive network with near-infinite power at your fingertips. As the only thing that can truly change the world – will you bring about an endless utopia, or consume it for your infinite growth?
