If you have bought Empires of the Undergrowth on Itch make sure you have got your steam key to access the early access build on December 1st. If you do not know how to get your steam key, this link will explain: https://itch.io/docs/buying/already-bought

You’ve all been amazingly patient, understanding and supportive as we’ve worked through our list of tasks and solved our problems, but we are entirely delighted to announce that Empires of the Undergrowth will be entering early access on December 1st, 2017!

Early access brings an entire overhaul of the game – the biggest of which is Formicarium Mode, where you take ownership of a laboratory colony of unique DNA-harvesting ants as they work to assimilate the desirable traits of their foes. You can upgrade them by playing one-off missions, sometimes with your home colony and sometimes with other ant species.

Ants are industrious, organised and hungry - as anyone who’s seen one of the multitude of documentaries following their exploits will tell you. They also show a huge variety of adaptations and bizarre traits - qualities that make them seemingly ideal for this form of strategy game.

It’s been a tough few weeks for our dev team. We’ve taken feedback from beta testers, worked through a huge number of game-breaking glitches, balanced, tweaked and tinkered. Obviously that won’t stop – when early access is underway we’ll still be listening to suggestions and responding to balance issues, whilst we begin work on the first new content for early access.

So you’ll all be building your formicariums and battling the critters of the undergrowth on December 1st on steam!

Visit the Empires of the Undergrowth Steam Page!