Games Like The Theory of Humanity

One planet. One colony. Ten commanders who all believe they should be running it. The Theory of Humanity is a real-time strategy game about bringing a dead world back to life — and making sure everyone remembers who did it. It stitches together things you rarely find in a single RTS: quests left behind by fallen soldiers, treasure growing inside anomalies, a planet that changes before your eyes, and neighbours who are allies at breakfast and targets by dinner. It will surprise you. More than once.

Everyone builds the same colony. Only one of you gets to run it. Agree on a truce in private messages — then break it in public. Rain toxin on a rival's base, launch a satellite that quietly drains their treasury, park a squad in front of their tractor and watch the harvest grind to a halt. Nobody here starts a war by accident: your soldiers never open fire on another player on their own. Every war is somebody's decision. Make sure it's yours.

Out in the dunes lie soldiers who never made it home. Reach one before your rivals do, and their last orders become yours: dig up a buried weapons cache, power a dying signal beacon, pull a wounded survivor out of the sand, hunt down the pack that got them. Every quest runs against the clock — and its reward, from a rocket launcher to a satellite of your own, can turn the whole match around.

Every recruit lands a rookie and can leave a legend. Ten levels, twenty-four skills and a choice between two cards at every promotion: grenades or a turret, a shield dome or a teleport, cloaking or a med station. Hidden traits make no two soldiers alike, captains in your colours hit twice as hard, and when infantry isn't enough, your factory rolls out tanks, rocket artillery and strike drones.

The fog of war hides everything: enemy bases, troop movements, even the orders they've just given. Use it. Mine the road they're about to take, hide behind walls that stop bullets, drop reinforcements blind right on top of someone who isn't looking. And remember that the planet sets traps of its own — that boulder over there might just be a Rock Crab.

Lightning fields, gravity vortexes, acid jelly and prism lasers scar the planet — and deep inside them grow boosters. Fifteen treasures, each one unique in the entire world: Fury doubles a soldier's damage, Titan's Heart doubles their health, Phantom turns them invisible while they hold still. A booster drops the moment its carrier falls, so the hunt for it never really ends.

Claim a deposit before anyone else does — every one holds a single mine, and the closer to the centre of the map, the richer it pays. Wire your base with power plants, raise factories and a spaceport, then feed your Thermal and Oxygen Plants with biomaterial taken from fallen enemies. Terraforming here is never peaceful — and every percent of heat and air you give the planet is a point on the leaderboard.

Stage one is a race to make the planet breathable, and whoever gives the most becomes Governor. Then the fog lifts for good, the ice walls melt and new land opens up. Stage two is settlement: houses dropped from orbit, farms and tractors, eight hundred colonists to feed while boar packs raid the fields — and a Governor who writes the colony's policies, not all of them fair. The endgame that settles once and for all who's really in charge is in development.

Nearly ninety lairs lie hidden between the locations, and the fog keeps their residents out of sight until it's far too late. Carrion Ghouls follow the smell of battle, a Rakeclaw's howl rouses every pack nearby, Maulbrutes charge and Lashers guard the ore. And in the impact crater nests the Sky Drake — an apex predator with a boss fight and a soundtrack all its own.

The Prometheus atmospheric processor towering over the desert. The ruins of an old outpost. A survivors' camp, an observatory, a radar station on Signal Ridge, and the Rust Sea — a colony fleet half-swallowed by the dunes. Every location has its own loot, its own guardians and its own story waiting to be dug up.

Bring up to nine friends into one world — or take the planet on alone. Pick your landing spot before the drop, talk to everyone in open chat or whisper to just one, and come back tomorrow: the world is persistent, and your army will be exactly where you left it.

The Theory of Humanity is in Early Access and growing fast. It was built to surprise you, and the developer hopes it will — more than once. Got an idea, a wild mechanic or a complaint? Come to the Discussions: every post gets read. Good luck, commander. You'll need it.