New highly anticipated colony sim releases on Steam after raising over $36,000 on Kickstarter

A new entry into the rapidly growing colony simulation genre is officially landing on Steam today. Dawn Apart is a new voxel-based factory and survival sim set on a hostile alien planet, and it is launching into early access following a successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year that raised just over €31,000 from more than 750 backers. The game is developed by German studio Industrial Technology & Witchcraft, and published under the Astra Logical label.

Dawn Apart carries over familiar elements from popular colony-building titles like Factorio and They Are Billions, but with a few unique touches of their own. Players land on an uninhabited alien world with the task of building up an automated industrial outpost while managing limited resources, where growing colonist needs have to be supported, and you have to survive waves of external threats at the same time. The catch? Every part of the world - terrain, buildings, and defenses - is fully destructible, thanks t

The game features both layered factory construction and open-ended exploration. Players can build vertically, set up conveyor systems, mine beneath the surface, or reshape the terrain entirely according to their layouts. Outside the main loop of automation and resource management, there's also a light layer of narrative, as players are taking on the role of a colonial commander working for a megacorp, though rebellion and resistance are also possible story paths depending on decisions made during play.

A public demo released earlier this year came with around two hours of hands-on factory building but did not include any combat. Feedback from early players over on Kickstarter has been very promising, though some notes of clunky UI elements and pacing have definitely been made.  The developers are also pretty responsive - frequent dev logs, community polls, and balance patches (like this one) are all part of the post-launch roadmap.

Dawn Apart is entering early access with plans for at least 20-30 months of continued development. According to the devs, the current version includes the base mechanics and core progression loop, with combat, environmental hazards, and campaign content that'll expand over time.