- August Dev Blog: Salt Barrens - 3 September 2026
Hey everyone! A new Dev Blog to share the latest evolution progress of Primordial Empire! The sun has been especially brutal this summer, and with that inspiration, it’s actually quite fitting that I’ve been working on the Salt Barrens biome.The Salt BarrensThe Salt Barrens are Primordial Empire’s underwater equivalent of a desert, arid lands with very little fertile ground. The intense sunlight quickly bleaches any fertile detritus, making growing crops (Micro Agave) no longer viable under such conditions. Your colony will need to explore other options to sustain the Stem Cells. Like desert dwellers in real life, your ecosystem will rely heavily on hunting and foraging, which is where the Brine Crown, a new wild organism, comes in.The Brine Crown is a plant that has adapted to the highly saline Salt Barrens and even managed to extract nutrients from literally salted grounds. It grows a…
- July Dev Blog: Strategic World Map - 31 July 2026
Hey everyone!Marc here! It’s been a while since the last dev log, and Primordial Empire has evolved a lot! I’ve been doing a lot of work on the strategic parts of the game, including a new strategic AI that will try to destroy your Collective and an Expedition feature that lets you expand across all the biomes of the world map. Let’s have a look!Strategic AIEnemy colonies (“nests”) would spread over time, searching for the player’s colony. Each nest will have a different behavioral "archetype" (e.g., balanced, stagnant, expansionist, aggressive, psychotic etc.) guiding its expansion, with a global “agitation” level (calm - agitated - hostile - frenzied) to further influence how the AI behaves towards the player.Once they encounter the player, these enemy nests will be driven by increased agitation to build up their dominance level. They will start attacking the player in waves and prod…
- June Dev Blog: Scouts and Transports - 6 June 2026
Hi everyone!Summer is here, bringing sunshine and warmth to the primordial soup. Thanks to that, our microscopic world is teeming with life, and our growing Collective is gradually adding new microorganisms to the mix. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the new cells and plants I’ve designed over the last couple months:Elite combat unitThe Collective already has two different combat units: Lancet Cells as the staple melee fighter, and Medusae (or Jellies) for ranged support. Still, I always felt something was missing – the roster just didn’t feel right without an elite unit. Thus, the Abyssal Harpy was born.The Abyssal Harpy will be a fast heavy-hitter with a piercing tongue attack (actually, a bit like a xenomorph). It’s going to hit like a truck, and can even swallow smaller, damaged enemies whole! I want these harpies to evoke a sense of alien menace, so their imagery, while still obviou…
- March Dev Log: An Early Look at Trading - 30 March 2026
Hey everyone!Spring has returned and life in the primordial soup blooms once more. It’s been a while since the last community post and this will be a good time to show some development progress of Primordial Empire so far this year. I'm currently working on a world map comprised of interconnected areas called biome islands. Each island will have different conditions and resource distributions. That means colonies on each island will need to overcome varying environmental challenges and adopt different specializations. Here's an early preview: Established colonies can be connected through trade routes, which are vital links for exchanging resources. Each colony will be able to send out surplus resources and receive what they lack in return. Instead of every colony for itself, your collective will be a growing network of ecosystems collaborating to thrive and evolve. Plan your expansions…
- Demo v0.4 Update - 23 January 2026
Hey everyone! I just published the v0.4_demo update, and it is a big one. First of all, I want to thank everybody again for your continued support - it really is a blast working on Primordial Empire with this community.With this update, the Demo will be feature-complete. This doesn't mean that there will be no new features - they will be released as Early Access is slated to arrive in Q4 2026. We still have a lot of exciting features to look forward to, like the upgrade and research system, the world map with multi-colony gameplay (incl. trade and conquest), a campaign, a freeplay-mode, and more maps, more creatures, more everything!A sneak peek at the genome system that I'm working on right now.Now for what's in this last big update for the demo - the most exciting one is language support for French, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Since this took a bit longer than expected (localizatio…
- Swiss Game Awards! - 23 December 2025
You might remember in last week's Steam post I mentioned Primordial Empire was nominated in the SGDA Swiss Game Awards. Well, looks like we have another piece of good news!I'm thrilled to announce that Primordial Empire has received the Excellence Award in last Thursday's award ceremony! It's an honor for my microscopic colony builder to be recognised by the Swiss game industry, and I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas present. I would like to thank you, the passionate players of Primordial Empire, for helping me build it into the thriving empire it is today. Every piece of your suggestion and feedback has been essential nutrients for the collective's evolution, making it better with each iteration. And we are far from done yet, with more content in the works for 2026.
- Primordial Empire 2025 Recap - 16 December 2025
Hey everyone! We are ending 2025 with some amazing news: Primordial Empire is nominated for the SGDA Swiss Game Awards Most Anticipated Game 2025! The ceremony will be held online on Dec 18 at 19:00 CET, and you can watch it at home on the Livestream! That’s going to be a great way to conclude 2025 for Primordial Empire, and I’d like to take this chance to do a quick recap of the year. Since the demo launch in April, the game has come a long way: Demo launchPrimordial Empire’s Demo debuted this April, with 2 hours of an open scenario gameplay where players can start building their microscopic colony with 19 plants and 5 cells. I was pleasantly surprised by the positive response from everyone, as we soon reached the 5,000 wishlist milestone! Combat UpdateIn June, Primordial Empire got its first major update: Combat was introduced with enemies and defensive structures. War has come to the…
- Demo Update! ☣️🦠🔫 - 10 November 2025
Hey everyone!A new demo update just dropped, with new enemies, new units and buildings, and new harvestable resources! That’s why instead of the usual monthly blog, today we are jumping straight into all the cool new stuff coming to Primordial Empire in this patch.A Risky Harvest☣️ You can now find contaminated remains scattered across the map. This is a new type of resource that can be harvested for plenty of DNA. There’s one drawback though: you might uncover viruses lurking within the decayed biomatter!New Danger Revealed 🦠That brings us to the Virus, a new danger introduced in this update. Once released, they will float around the primordial soup idly, waiting for a host to approach. When they spot their next victim, they will latch on and reproduce inside the host. The host then bursts open, releasing more viruses into the wild. More Firepower🔫To fend off this new threat, the col…
- September Monthly Round-Up 🌏 - 6 October 2025
Hey everyone! Two big things just happened last month – first, the Wildlife Update, then Tokyo Game Show right after! Let us have a catch-up in this monthly blog post!Wildlife UpdateThis September update introduced a substantial amount of new content to Primordial Empire, adding a brand-new mechanic and several new creatures, each with their own habits and abilities. Now you can explore all the different biomes and either destroy or recruit the neutral flora and fauna for your own microscopic empire. Here are the full patch notes.Tokyo Game Show 2025The Wildlife Update came just in time for this massive event! I had the chance to join my publisher Slug Disco in Tokyo and set up a booth to showcase Primordial Empire. This has been an amazing opportunity to see everyone playing my game live and I got a lot of very helpful feedback. Here are some pictures from the expo, and you can spot me…
- Tokyo Game Show 2025! - 17 September 2025
Hey everyone! I'm thrilled to announce that Primordial Empire will be in Tokyo Game Show 2025!From September 25-28, the Primordial Empire demo will be on display with the new Wildlife Update at the Slug Disco booth, Hall 11-E32 in the indie games area of Makuhari Messe.I'll be there too so if you are also attending the event, come and say hi! 🙂
- Wildlife Update! - 12 September 2025
Hi everyone!The Wildlife Update is here! Introducing neutral wildlife to Primordial Empire, this update features 9 new species of microbes and plants, and a brand new mechanic that allows more meaningful interactions than simply fighting them. Here are the update highlights:WildlifeYou can now find neutral wildlife scattered across the maps, sometimes forming a basic food chain or delicate ecosystems in various pockets. These new creatures possess their own unique abilities and habits:Cave Grass: Micro Agave in darkness have been replaced with Cave Grass (same mechanics but with a distinct look).Witherleek: A wild plant native to fungal biomes, producing poisonous food particles.Progenitor Cells/Pods: Ancestral wild forms of Stem Cells, often at the base of the food chain.Wild Hunter Cells/Pods: Predators that prey on local wildlife such as Progenitors.Nomad Cells & Egg Clutches: Scaven…
- Slug Disco @ Tokyo Game Shows 2025 - 12 September 2025
Hello everyone! Slug Disco will be returning to Tokyo Game Show from September 25th to the 28th! The Ember Guardian will be available to play in the Select Indie 80 section of the venue, and we will have 6 more games to play over in the indie area of the show. The games on show will be: Adapt Green Again Horticular (with a surprise!) Strange Seed Ecosystem Primordial Empire If you're at the show please come say hello to me (Dan) and Hei Man :)
- August Monthly Round-Up 🦠 - 1 September 2025
Hey everyone! Time really does fly by when you’re trying to build an empire in the deep sea – we’re already in September! I’ve been working on an upcoming update aiming to introduce wildlife to Primordial Empire, and some of you might have seen some snippets in last month’s round-up. This monthly post will ressemble more of a dev log -- we'll go through some of the work-in-progress with a bit more detail and a few more screenshots. Wildlife IncomingYou might have already seen the above life forms last month, and here's a different shot of these “wildlife” components coming in the future. The yellow cells are progenitor cells (spawned by the yellow plant on the left), which are basically “wild stem cells” that work like the player-controlled ones. They eat and then they split, serving as the foundation of certain wildlife interactions (e.g. there will also be predators). They are general…
- July Monthly Round-Up 🦠 - 31 July 2025
Hey everyone! Welcome back to our monthly blog post! Last month’s combat update introduced two new scenarios to Primordial Empire, one of which a procedurally generated secret level that plays differently every time. It’s been great seeing everyone enjoying the new challenges so much, and I cannot thank you all enough for playing the demo and showing so much enthusiastic support for my game. Now I am more excited than ever to share you some of the new content that I've been making for the next update. What’s NextAfter introducing combat and warfare to this microscopic colony builder, my focus shifted back on developing new content – for example, new plants! Here’s a sneak peek at what I’m currently working on:These will be part of a wildlife update for the Demo to further flesh out different biomes by adding native wildlife. They will generally be neutral towards the player while adding…
- June Monthly Round-Up 🦠 - 1 July 2025
Greetings everyone! This month has seen some big changes to Primordial Empire’s demo, with our first bit of combat content finally arriving, and more updates followed to refine this microscopic warfare. Let us quickly go through what happened in June! Combat UpdateThanks to all of your support, the combat update has been met with enthusiastic response from the community! The new combat scenario has introduced ruthless enemies and brutal battles to Primordial Empire. See the patch notes for the full details!And there's even more to the update -- if you achieve 3 stars in both the economic and combat scenarios, you can unlock a third, bonus stage with a procedurally generated map that makes every replay a unique experience. You will need to carefully plan your expansion and explore truly unknown territories while fending off waves of enemies from multiple angles. Master the first two scen…
- Demo Combat Update ⚔️ - 6 June 2025
Peaceful base-building is over! Primordial Empire just got a Combat Update, featuring a new combat scenario with new enemies and challenges. Muster your army of lancet cells and prepare your defence. Protect your colony of microbes from the relentless attacks of hostile organisms!Update Highlights:Introducing the Hydra, a static turret with powerful projectiles. This defensive plant is slumbering somewhere on the combat scenario map. Explore every nook and cranny to retrieve it and bolster your defence.The enemies come with a well-equipped army of diverse units:Carnitubes - static structures (plants) hazardous to your wandering cellsParasites and their Hives - "skirmishers" that harass and disrupt your colonyStabpole - rank and file of the invaders. Attacks both cells and plantsPurgeling - a "siege unit" that can destroy plants with its devastating barrageThere are also a myriad of opti…
- May Monthly Round-Up 🦠 - 5 June 2025
Hello everyone! Welcome back to Primordial Empire's monthly wrap-up, and this month we have some exciting news. The demo launch gave everyone a taste of microscopic colony building, and we are very pleased to see so many colonies flourish in peace - but no peace lasts forever. It is time to raise the stakes, and our next update will introduce combat to the game. Combat Update Incoming Peaceful base-building will soon be over, as the combat update aims to bring enemies to your doorstep. In the new demo scenario, players will have to build an army of lancet cells to explore the hostile environment, and set up base defence using a new type of defensive plant to repel intruders. Check out our combat trailer for a first look at the new enemies, coming this Friday June 6! Be careful, though. For a hungry menace lurks in the dark. Developer Interview (German Language Content) https://youtu.be/…
- Twitch Developer Interview on Sunday May 18 - 16 May 2025
We're very excited to announce that Marc, our solo developer of Primordial Empire, is joining Writing Bull on Twitch this Sunday May 18 at CEST 21:30/UTC 19:30 for a developer interview! Marc will be sharing some of the ins and outs of developing Primordial Empire on this stream, and also a sneak peek of what's coming next to the demo! (Do beware that the stream will be in German. We understand that not everyone will be able to watch it, though we would still appreciate your support.) See you this Sunday on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/writing_bull
- Our First Monthly Round-Up 🦠 - 1 May 2025
Greetings everyone! Welcome to our first ever community monthly update. This will be a monthly summary of what Primordial Empire is up to every month, from events we participated in to sneak peeks of future content, so everyone can keep up with our latest news. Now without further ado, let’s hop right into the actual meat of this post, because there are a lot of great things to cover this month. Demo launch, and Wishlist Milestone Primordial Empire's demo was released last month, and we have been blown away by the overwhelming support from all of you. Within two weeks after the demo launch, we managed to hit 5000 wishlists. This is a major milestone for us and we got there way faster than expected. This couldn’t have happened without all of your help, and we’d like to thank you, our passionate community, for getting us there. Demo Update Patch A demo launch of many players comes with ma…
- Demo Update Patch Notes - v0.1.4 - 12 April 2025
Thank you every for a cracking demo launch and Earth Appreciation Festival! We are fast approaching 5,000 wishlists which is a great milestone in such a short amount of time (if you haven't wishlisted already please do!) With the demo launch has come a great amount of feedback and we've made some changes to the demo which we have outlined below :) As always, please keep the feedback coming in and we will continue updating the demo as development progresses! New Vesicle Hubs start with Plasma-powered chain input filled Mineral Extractor's Symbiotic Feeding chain defaults to high priority Can now set hunting behavior of Feeder Hubs and Carnivorous Protein Factory (allow/ban hunting Stem Cells / Aminoberries) Micro Agave now starts with 50 calories; food production never drains calories below 50 --> much more robust against starvation, using Symbiotic Feeding alone now more viable Poison d…
