Choose an origin
Begin with a distinct playable origin, such as survivors emerging from a failing bunker or zealots searching the dustlands. Your start helps define the challenges and identity of your people.
What is Afterworld?
A grand strategy game at human scale.
Afterworld begins with a tiny band of people trying to outlive the wasteland. Its long game is the story of what their society becomes.
Developed by Paradox Development Studio, the team behind Crusader Kings III and Hearts of Iron IV, Afterworld is an original post-apocalyptic survival grand strategy game. You lead a tribe through the ruins of North America: establish settlements, connect them with supply lines, negotiate with rivals, and eventually compete for a continent.
The key promise is a change in scale. Early decisions are immediate—finding water, feeding people, or choosing whether to move camp. As your nation grows, those same pressures expand into laws, diplomacy, wars, social factions, and the difficult question of what kind of empire deserves to survive.
DeveloperParadox Development Studio
PublisherParadox Interactive
SettingPost-apocalyptic North America
Modes announcedSingle-player, Co-op & PvP
The survivor's loop
From shelterfolk
to statecraft.
Secure the basics
Food, water, and fuel are not background numbers. Scarcity can stretch your band thin, so early expansion must be balanced against keeping everyone alive and able to learn.
Let the world teach you
Ideas are revealed by experience. Encountering a river may open irrigation; meeting a religious tribe can expose organized religion. Exploration directs development.
Write a new order
Set laws, distribute scarce goods, choose who has a political voice, and respond to crises. Each answer shifts the demands—and the character—of your society.
The expedition map
A familiar continent,
an unfamiliar future.
Afterworld’s North America has recognizable terrain and geography, but the resources, tribes, and dangers are reshuffled in each procedural playthrough. Treat every expedition as both reconnaissance and research: what you find can change your next strategic options.
Resource / opportunityRival / threatRoute / migration
How power works
More than a map-painter.
Territory gives you reach, but people, logistics, and legitimacy determine whether that reach holds. The game frames other bands as both a vital resource and a serious threat.
Settlement & logistics
Establish settlements, organize convoys, and create supply lines to exploit discoveries. If a region runs dry, migration remains a strategic option—your first settlement does not have to remain your capital.
Diplomacy & conflict
Trade, negotiate alliances, welcome wandering tribes, raid rivals, or go to war. As resources deplete and the map fills, coexistence becomes a decision rather than an assumption.
Ancients & old technology
Pre-Fall technology can greatly expand what a nation can do, but it is contested and dangerous. The Ancients—immortal leaders sustained by forgotten technology—have their own ambitions for the new world.
Choices with consequences
A shortage can become famine; a political error can fracture a nation. The guidepost is simple: short-term survival decisions continually produce long-term social consequences.
Reading & viewing list
Follow the signal.
This guide is based on the official Steam page and the supplied announcement coverage. Because Afterworld is still in development, features and details may change before launch.