Worlds Unbound: The Gold Wars

Real-time strategy for the last of Earth's gold, and for the hidden worlds that cannot live without it.

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How the Gold Wars began

  1. 2051

    Humanity built a machine that grew universes.

    Project Elsewhere sealed each new universe inside a crystal small enough to hold in one hand.

  2. 2053

    Inside, a laboratory shift could last a thousand years.

    Its intelligence, Meridian, accelerated their clocks and watched whole histories unfold.

  3. 2054

    Civilisations rose inside them. They were real.

    Their people had children, governments, wars and ordinary afternoons. Earth's rules did not count them.

  4. 2055

    Their sky asked questions. Their answers became Earth's miracles.

    Reactors, medicine and weapons crossed the boundary. On Earth, the discoveries were called autonomous research.

  5. 2061

    Then their gold ran out, and Earth refused to send more.

    Gold held their living magic together. Earth wanted more discoveries first.

  6. 2062

    So they opened a door.

    One crossing at Alexandria cascaded through the network. The world calls it the Opening.

  7. 2108

    Forty-six years later, four armies fight for the gold that is left.

    Whoever holds it decides which worlds keep living.

Concept art, not gameplay

Skip the story

Story trailer

Yield

In 2059 Elias Voss sold the world a miracle. In 2063 he testified about what it cost.

A story cinematic, not gameplay. Sound on.

Gold runs out. Every match is a fight for what is left.

Build.

Raise a base from one headquarters, then power it, wall it and arm it.

Build wherever your base reaches

Every match starts with a headquarters, a generator, a refinery, a harvester, a scout and 3,000 gold. Structures need power and go up only inside your reach.

Hold the line

Walls, gates and towers stop a raid while harvesters keep hauling gold home.

Superweapons, with ten seconds of warning

Each faction can raise one. When it charges, every player on the map knows.

Grow.

Gold is finite. Every mine runs dry, so the map is always worth taking.

Every mine runs dry

When the seam runs low you hear it, and your economy has to move before it stalls.

Expand across the map

Scout through the fog, claim the next mine and unfold a command vehicle into a new headquarters.

Research changes how you fight

Shared upgrades and six of each faction's own, from better armour to whole new abilities. A doctrine, one of three per faction, grows stronger with every fight.

Fight.

Soldiers take cover, hold buildings and live to fight again.

Take cover

Squads kneel behind walls and hedges, and find cover on their own when fire comes in. Where they stand decides the firefight.

Hold the farmhouse

Infantry garrison buildings and fire from the windows until the walls come down.

Pull them out, send them back

Retreat a broken squad, let medics patch it up, and it goes back in with the experience it earned.

Big guns behind the line

Siege guns raise their barrels and drop shells on targets far beyond their own sight.

Four answers to the same question.

Every faction fields 18 units, 16 buildings, two unique pieces and a superweapon of its own.

Backdrops are concept art; the clips are pre-alpha gameplay.

“Earth will remain a home we can govern.”

Fights for
Restore accountable human government over Earth and the machines that run it.
Fears
Another uncontrolled Opening, and the end of human self-government.

Coordinated armour and dependable logistics: disciplined rifle sections, wheeled armour, rail artillery and repair crews that keep it all running.

Ways to play

Skirmish

Up to eight armies, free for all or in teams, against computer opponents on Easy, Normal or Hard.

  • Glass RoadDesert, 2 players
  • Orchard WadiWoodland, 2 players
  • Garden of DoorsTown, 2 players
  • Carob HeightsWoodland, 4 players
  • Seven ArchesWoodland, 6 players
  • Fourfold ExchangeDesert, 8 players
  • Concord ReachRiverlands, 8 players

Holdout

One base. Twenty waves, or endless. Boss waves led by each faction's unique units. Easy, Normal or Hard on Glass Road, Weir Crossing, Bullion Cross and Arches Isle.

Concept art: a Directorate officer halts a convoy carrying a glowing world core

Campaign

Sixteen missions across the Saffron Reach, starting with a convoy and a crystal that should be empty. The first three are playable in the pre-alpha.

Concept art

Online play

Online multiplayer and a map editor are planned. Follow on X to hear about every build first.

Follow on X

The lore

“The manifest says this core is empty.”“Then ask why it needs a school.”

Commander Mara Vale and Nara Vey, Saffron Reach, 2108

Some crystals hold whole worlds. Read how they were made, who lives inside, and why four armies now fight over them.

Read the lore

Claim your share of the gold.

Wishlisting tells Steam to show Worlds Unbound to more players, and it tells you the moment the game is out.

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