Classic city builder Pharaoh gets a remaster Steam demo

pcgamesn.com:

We already knew a 4K remake of classic city-building game Pharaoh was on the way, and now you’ve got a chance to give it a whirl for yourself. Pharaoh: A New Era has come to Steam Next Fest, a now-live festival on Valve’s storefront with hundreds of demos to try for free.

Pharaoh: A New Era overhauls the classic 1998 city builder with a complete graphical remaster in 4K HD and a modernised UI. The game features all of the original’s content, including 50 missions and its Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile expansion, as well as a full map and mission editor. So, while you should find gameplay to be largely the same as you remember if you’re a fan of the classic, the remaster will totally refresh the look to make it a far more modern experience. Publisher Dotemu shared a handy side-by-side comparison clip of the original and remake last year, which you can catch below to get a taste of what’s in store.

Now, there’s a demo to try out through the game’s Steam page, ahead of the game’s arrival sometime later this year. It’s only a taster sample of the game, as you’d expect, featuring a tutorial with four playable missions, some “motivational tracks” to help you get used to the day-to-day of ruling your city, the game’s classic “fire in the city”, and, er, “ostriches to feed your inhabitants (with love)”. Oh no.

“This demo is just a preview of what awaits you later this year,” Dotemu and developer Triskell note on Steam. “We hope you will enjoy this preview as much as we love this title.” Here’s a peek at the upcoming remaster:

It’s worth noting that the demo is a work-in-progress, so you might stumble across some bugs and hiccups the developers are stamping out ahead of its release. You can check out the list of known issues there,