Turn-based strategy from the stone age to the space age.
Development updates
Latest news
- Hunting Giants
These three weeks were mostly about Epoch 1's savanna and the animals that share it. The opening is new, the tribe can now hunt as a team, and the plains are home to several giants of the Pleistocene, some of which are… Read more: Hunting Giants - From the Village to the Globe
Most of these three weeks went into a question I have wanted to answer since the start of the project: what does this world look like when you keep zooming out? Zooming out, one epoch at a time In Epoch 2, a… Read more: From the Village to the Globe - Clans, Wonders, and Meaningful Choices
This past stretch has been about making every step through Epoch 2 feel more deliberate. I have been tightening the visual identity of the settlement, making research choices carry clearer consequences, and giving the world beyond the settlement a stronger voice of… Read more: Clans, Wonders, and Meaningful Choices - Walls, Work, and Stone
This update has been about giving an Epoch 2 settlement more weight and purpose. I have been building the systems that let a small community defend its home, organise its daily work, and eventually move stones large enough to outlast the people… Read more: Walls, Work, and Stone
A new update every three weeks. Get them by email
The game
Lead your people through two million years
Humanity Ascends is a turn-based strategy game in six epochs. It begins with a few Homo erectus on the East African savanna and follows their descendants to the space age. Every epoch has its own scale, its own scarcity and its own rivals, and the world grows larger with each one.
Survival is the goal
History does not wait. Every epoch lasts a fixed number of turns, and when it ends, your people have to be ready for what comes next.
Scarcity, not grind
No snowballing, no endgame grind and no micromanagement. Food, land and resources stay scarce, so every turn and every choice counts.
Exploration that lasts
In most strategy games the map is known by the midgame. Here the world zooms out with every epoch, so there is always new land beyond the edge.
Real places
The journey begins in East Africa and continues on the wild Isar in Central Europe. The wider views are built from real elevation data, all the way out to the globe.
The epochs
Six epochs, one journey
- 1The First Fire2 million years agoIn development
- 2The First Villages5500 BCIn development
- 3Kingdoms3000 BCPlanned
- 4Nations1400 ADPlanned
- 5The Modern World1900 ADPlanned
- 6Ascension2040 ADPlanned
Epoch 1 · East Africa · 2 million years ago
The First Fire
A small tribe of Homo erectus on the savanna. Find water and food, hunt big game as a team, drive hyenas off a kill and meet a band of Homo habilis. Learn to keep a fire, and grow strong enough for the great migration into Eurasia.
Epoch 2 · Central Europe · 5500 BC
The First Villages
Your people settle beside the wild Isar and clear their fields from the forest. Villagers take up trades, shamans seek knowledge, and rival clans remember every gift and every raid. Trade with them, fight them, or raise a monument that outlasts you all.
Explore the technology treeThen the world grows with every epoch: settlements become cities, cities become nations, and nations reach for orbit. I am building Epochs 1 and 2 first, and the later epochs follow once both play well.
Newsletter
Follow the development
Every three weeks I write an update on what has changed in the game. Subscribe to get it by email, along with a short note for the big milestones: the Steam page, the demo and the release.