To be honest, ever since Imperator: Rome made a huge splash in 2019, I predicted that Paradox Interactive would stay within its comfort zone for a long time and wouldn't risk developing a brand-new grand strategy IP.
I just didn't expect Paradox to retreat for a full seven years.
It wasn't until August 25, 2026, at the Opening Night Live of Gamescom, that the veil over the new IP was finally lifted—Afterworld.
The game is set in North America about a century after the Great Cataclysm. By then, the glory of old human civilization had long turned to ruins under the relentless ravages of time, and humanity had scattered into tribes large and small, struggling to find a future for civilization.
Thus, players once again step in from the perspective of "national will" to guide the survivors who are struggling to survive, warring, allying, and constantly exploring a new era in this post-apocalyptic wasteland.
For this demo, I chose the "Vault Successors" (temporary translation, as the demo lacked Chinese localization) as the foundation for my conquest of the future American continent.
In the backstory, as the vaults neared collapse, the "Vault Successors" had to leave the underground where they had lived for centuries and return to the surface to explore the post-apocalyptic ruins. These are excellent residents whose concepts of good and evil align well with modern logic, and qualified subjects who explore the apocalypse with rationality and goodwill—the reason for emphasizing this is something everyone likely understands.
Paradox games have their lawful good aspects, but also chaotic evil ones. For instance, in the idea tree—Afterworld's unique tech tree—I briefly spotted ideas that treat sentient beings as basic technical materials or even ingredients. If early warfare becomes a thing later, this idea might be key to snowballing. Unfortunately, this demo restricted gameplay to the "lawful good" "Vault Successors," otherwise I would have definitely tried it out to see how deep it goes.
However, judging from this small sample, the conflict between humanity, morality, and survival will undoubtedly be one of the core philosophical discussions in Afterworld.
Of course, we will likely have more to discuss on this point once the official demo or full version of the game is released, so I won't elaborate further here. In short, for Paradox, which has stuck to conventions for a long time, Afterworld represents not only a breakthrough in theme but also significant strides in gameplay experimentation.
First, players don't start with a model city ready for construction; instead, they must wander like nomads in pursuit of resources. The map in Afterworld is divided into irregular polygonal provinces, each with initial limits on supplies, radiation, and tile size.
Supplies roughly include food and water, radiation determines whether a tile is habitable, and tile size determines development potential. The latter two will inevitably play significant roles as the game progresses. However, for this demo lasting less than 20 minutes, we had no opportunity to explore them.
In short, let's first help these survivors under our command fill their bellies.
The early-game pioneering process is somewhat similar to the Civilization series. We control a pioneer squad, carrying the last batch of supplies and tools scavenged from the vault, searching for suitable provinces to settle. Following the instincts of strategy game players, I selected provinces with low radiation and moderate supplies as my foundation.
After the pioneers successfully settled a city, I immediately used the remaining resources to produce scouts and went out to explore. This choice was purely driven by the paradigm of veteran strategy game players: regardless of the situation, "spamming scouts to reveal the map at the start" is definitely a must-do for newcomers.
However, given the massive amount of information provided by Afterworld at the demo site, I couldn't determine if this approach was optimal. From a UI perspective, merely exploring and settling a city already involves numerous complete secondary and tertiary UI panels, each filled with data and information waiting to be reviewed.
Players familiar with Paradox games should understand what this means.
Jokes aside, looking back now, going all-in on producing "two dogs" (scouts) at the start might have been one of the key reasons I stumbled through 20 minutes without being forced to restart, unlike other media outlets.
You might remember my repeated mentions of "nomadic" gameplay earlier—yes, just as the two exploration teams finished production, before I could even group them to reveal the map, I noticed that the new home, barely settled by the pioneer group, had already exhausted all resources on the tile that didn't require technology to gather.
The only berry bush in the territory needed six more years to recover, and water reserves had already been depleting since the first exploration team departed. With supplies running critically low, I had to immediately order the pioneer team to pack up and search for the next piece of land.
In fact, for most of the next 20 minutes, I repeatedly cycled through the nomadic routine of setting up camp, gathering resources, and packing up. I did this partly because I was unsure of Afterworld's specific pioneering process and was trying to find a suitable permanent settlement.
On the other hand, I was also testing whether this new IP had a so-called "nomadic strategy." Unfortunately, this approach didn't seem to advance progress much. In any case, during the tribe's continuous migration, I thoroughly explored the maps of a dozen or so surrounding provinces, uncovering many special elements on the map.
First, some provinces contain special ruins, such as abandoned car factories or dilapidated hydroponic farms. Some of these ruins require specific technologies or events to operate, others directly boost tile yields, and some have purposes that remain unclear.
Ruins located in urbanRuin also feature "event" technologies—I'm not entirely sure if Afterworld requires archaeology to unlock corresponding tech tree branches. However, I can confirm that specific tech directions are strongly tied to exploration. For instance, if you settle near a forest, the tree-related idea tree will light up, allowing players to invest research resources to unlock more ideas related to trees.
Thus, after unlocking most of the seemingly basic ideas like "Workshop," "Windmill," and "Pasture," I established my first permanent settlement in a low-radiation province not far from urban ruins. This province was accidentally discovered by the third exploration team around the 15-minute mark—a chosen land featuring shrublands, forests, fish ponds, and an abandoned hydroponic farm.
Twenty minutes of nomadic wandering accumulated considerable resources for my people. Thanks to this, I frantically farmed during the final five minutes of the demo. At this stage, Afterworld seems to share similarities with city-building games—players need to arrange various production buildings and assign laborers to start production.
Moreover, different raw materials can produce various special components, which can presumably be used for trade or serve as part of advanced production chains later on.
The overall gameplay feels somewhat similar to the supply chain mechanics in ARA: History Untold, though there seem to be some differences—unfortunately, time was too short to savor the details.
In fact, my demo experience suffered from both time constraints and language barriers. Even though English isn't difficult for me, making decisions and judgments by navigating through various secondary and tertiary UIs in such a short time was indeed challenging. Not to mention Paradox Interactive's signature high customizability and random events, which were present throughout my entire playthrough.
Each event consists of hundreds of English words—would anyone agree that my 20 minutes felt like taking the TOEFL reading test?
Overall, Afterworld has indeed made many innovative attempts on top of Paradox's traditional grand strategy map-painting gameplay. For example, unlocking the tech tree through exploration, and integrating city-building supply chain and population mechanics into the early exploration phase—these designs make the Afterworld experience distinctly different from all other strategy games on the market.
Of course, new players suffering from information overload and brain freeze is likely the biggest potential flaw in this design. However, personally speaking, exploring new mechanics is ultimately much more interesting than following formulaic templates.
As long as it doesn't end up like Imperator: Rome.