I really like Steam’s recently released…eh…release calendar feature. It winnows down what shows up “above the fold” on the Steam homepage to the kinds of games that I apparently like (it’s about time Steam started actually using knowledge it has of my purchases in my favor). Today it paid off by showing me a game called Dungeon Settlers that is due out on September 4th, 2026.

The game is a combo of a rogue-like multi-level dungeon clear title and a settlement management title. In the currently available demo, you start off as a single character who finds himself in a dungeon. The tutorial explains a few things as you go through, like how to manage your eventual party, interact and pick up items, and fight enemies. Eventually, you can leave the dungeon for the “overworld” via a blue portal that every subsequent dungeon has.

The overworld is a desolate area, and is really only good (as far as I can tell) for constructing your settlement. After picking up a third party member and being instructed on how to hire additional bodies, the tutorial explains how to create crafting and research benches, how to harvest the few items that the overworld provides, and how to create buildings.

The loop is that we build our base on the overworld using materials we harvest from both the overworld and the dungeons, gather or hire the party, and then return to the dungeon as the dungeons are the only places where we can get materials other than basic wood and basic rocks, such as food, treasure, and parts needed for crafting advanced tools and such.

When departing the settlement, we have the option to choose which level of the dungeon we want to embark to, from the levels we have unlocked. Each run “depletes” a segment of it’s offerings, so we limited opportunities to tackle a level before we have to wait for it to reset.

We also get one last chance to outfit our team. In this screen, our party of four (max party size) can draw from settlement storage and trade items. There’s a panel in the lower right corner which explains our current adventuring situation, and it will also let us know if we’re missing something, like when three out of my four party members were lacking head armor.

The dungeons themselves seem to be pretty straightforward in design. They are rooms connected by hallways. Each room can have resources such as berry bushes, trees, old campgrounds, probably more than that which I have yet to find, and, of course, enemies to fight. Combat just requires a right-click on a target. Melee characters will charge in and ranged characters will attack from a distance (ammo is a thing for characters of the bow-wielding persuasion). Each character can have special active attack abilities as well as passive abilities which we can unlock and assign when characters level up. There is a pause and time-acceleration function; the pause works well in combat, and the acceleration function works best when waiting for work to be completed in the overland.

I had downloaded this game on a whim, but I’m actually quite pleased with it. Although it’s a rogue-like, which I don’t normally care for, it doesn’t seem to really overload the player with too many systems or too many options. I’m thinking that maybe I could hire some potential party members and leave them in the camp as there’s a scheduler included in the game, a la Rimwold, that makes it seem like I could keep things rolling back at the HQ while my party of four is downstairs getting slaughtered. There’s no price on it as of now, so I’m hoping that it’ll be somewhat affordable, as there’s a few other titles releasing in the next month or so that are as close to must-buys as I care to approach these days.