Hello citizens and welcome back to the Nero Gaming newsletter!

We hit your inbox harder than Greek fire—lighting up your day and making you jump for joy. Here’s what we have for you:

• Games that let you work hard, trade hard 🤑 

• AI is coming to an NPC near you 🤖 

• Valheim somehow isn’t hard enough for people (I guess) 💀 

Specialized Economies

Self Sufficiency: It’s one of the hallmarks of the sandbox and survival craft genres.

Many games we cover here follow the same arc:

Start from nothing —> Build and craft your way to self sufficiency (and beyond)

This is a time honored way to feel like a badass. For those of you that have done this repeatedly, the Emperor salutes you 🫡 …

Today, though, we’re taking a look at games that offer an alternate route to post scarcity. We’re channeling our inner Adam Smith as we explore games that offer the opportunity to build a specialized economy as opposed to a general one.

In most games, one’s ability to specialize in an economy can be described by two factors:

• The ability to acquire the in game currency

• The ability to use the in game currency

Let’s first look at Anno 1800.

With the help of merchants who will basically buy unlimited amounts of anything, the player’s ability to acquire money is limited only by their imagination and the shipping capacity.

That said, there are still fun ways to optimize income such as using union bonuses or selling to specific vendors.

(In one pirate inspired playthrough, I became a rum magnate and used the money to buy sails and cannons).

As to what you can do with your funds, players ARE a bit limited here.

Firstly, you can certainly deploy a LOT of capital to enhance your ability to produce (by purchasing items and specialists that grant bonuses and fertility—really helps bypass several headaches).

More to the point, though, you can set buy and sell orders for specific goods. The NPCs may or may not come fulfill these orders—it’s not something you can safely rely on. (For me, I usually try to purchase items that aren’t in constant need).

Overall, it’s really fun to build out complex, specialized industries in Anno and sell the goods—even if you can’t avoid having to produce your own goods, you can ALWAYS put the money to good use in other ways.

Next up, Space Engineers

Though the game has been around for nearly a decade, currency and trade was added only three years ago.

Money is earned through contracts (quests, basically) and can be spent on a variety of things—including fuel, parts and entire ships.

For me, this added SO MUCH fun to the gameplay. Here’s the Emperor’s deepest confession: I suck at making things look good.

When it comes to designing spaceships, I’m a brick boi through and through.

With the ability to buy complete ships, I found a new way to have fun in the game: tinker with existing designs to get exactly what I need.

Like Han Solo messing with the Millennium Falcon, it became a very rewarding challenge.

Both Space Engineers and Anno are examples of the gameplay was enhanced with the ability to trade and specialize.

Next time, we’ll do a deep dive on Eco—a game that revolves ENTIRELY around this style of gameplay.

Advanced AI in NPCs

By now we’ve all heard of ChatGPT and perhaps some of the buzzwords associated with the new AI hotness: Machine Learning (ML), Large Language Models (LLMs) etc.

One application excitedly in the works is AI powered NPCs. There is a new developer publicly working one of these projects and the results so far have piqued the Emperor’s interest.

Harris Rothaermel is a developer working on a “fully simulated” sandbox game, giving NPCs conversation ability and memory. (In the video above, NPCs “Thomas” and “Eli” have a less than cordial conversation).

Harris also shared a few more interesting bits in the comments, starting with a behind the scenes look at the memory function.

Here’s a few more tweets that capture the vision Harris is going for:

Overall, we are STOKED for Harris’ vision. We hope to see his projects succeed and to enjoy more immersive games as a result.

It’s also a safe bet there will be a lot more games integrating AI in the future and we will be SURE to keep you posted.

Valheim “No Map Runs”

If the hardcore survival Viking purgatory sim Valheim has been giving you the yawn’s recently, you’re in luck.

A group of players have been experimenting with a different way to play: No Map Runs.

It’s exactly what it sounds like—Playing Valheim without access to a map (which can be toggled off in the settings or with some commands or mods).

The only problem? The Valheim world is FUCKING humongous. (Check out this video of a guy walking across the whole thing).

This is just another example of players going above and beyond to find a challenge—from minecraft hardcore mode to Dark Souls no-hit runs.

Respect! ✊ 

Quick Hits

Link: ‘Forever Skies’ dev team publishes first AMA

The developers of the new airship base building sim answer questions from the players. Also, we get a first look at the new “flight map” which includes 4 player co-op, combat and “airship gardening.”

Link: Starfield reveals the ‘story so far’ with expansive 300-year timeline

The timeline begins with humanity first arriving on Mars in 2050, and runs up to 2328 – just two years before Starfield takes place in 2330.

Link: How Baldur's Gate 3 Was Completed in Just Ten Minutes by a Speedrunner

Speedrunner Mae managed this incredible feat over the weekend using just the origin character Gale, an extremely powerful jump ability, and a specific set of choices that end the game just a little earlier than people might anticipate.

The Emperor’s New Memes

Noteworthy Steam Sales

Graveyard Keeper - $3.99 (80% off) - Sale Ends Aug 21st

Sengoku Dynasty - $25.49 (15% off) - Sale Ends Aug 17th

City of Gangsters - $7.19 (76% off) - Sale Ends Aug 22nd