City 20 Promises to Make Your Choices Change the World

Imagine if you were quarantined in an entire city with just a handful of people. There is no police or army coming to save you; you're on your own. City 20 promises to deliver this kind of experience, backed by an interesting NPC system that promises to make no two playthroughs the same.

Earlier this month, I was invited to a virtual, hands-off presentation of City 20 with some of its developers. Untold Games has previously assisted other developers with titles such as It Takes Two and Journey to the Savage Planet, and now it has focused its creative energy on a new, original title — and Untold Games has cooked up something very interesting.

The Living, Breathing World of City 20

The titular City 20 is based on the "secret cities" of the Soviet Union. These cities and towns were dedicated to some sort of special government project. In this case, our new home was involved with nuclear technology. An unfortunate radiation leak has put the city under permanent quarantine — and you're trapped inside.

Fortunately, you are not alone. There are other residents of City 20, each with their own motivations and allegiances to a particular faction. You'll need to work with these NPCs (or work against them) in order to carve out a living for yourself, and your choices will determine how they interact with you.

The city (and the surrounding area) seemed fairly large from what I saw in the hands-off presentation, but there aren't going to be very many people around. The developers told me that we should expect to see approximately 30 to 40 NPCs in the world, the vast majority of whom will be randomly generated. This is one of the many ways each playthrough will be unique.

A Colony Sim of Sorts

City 20 doesn't quite fit into any one gameplay genre neatly. I suppose you could call it a life sim, a survival game, or a sandbox game. In my eyes, though, the genre that fits best is colony sim, albeit with one major caveat: You aren't really in control of most of the colony.

Naturally, you'll have your own needs to worry about. City 20 will support hunting, farming, and crafting (among other activities), so it's pretty clear to me that there are survival elements to some degree. There are also merchants, so I imagine that you could do entirely different activities and purchase the things you need instead.

The player character got away with stealing from a shop, but these missing items made the shopkeeper extremely security-conscious. He barricaded his house and stayed up all night to protect his stuff. Break in again, and you'll find yourself in a fight for your life.

Everything is centered around a delicate balance of supply and demand — a microcosm of the free market with only a handful of players. Resources are scarce and your actions will reflect that. If you chop down all of the trees in an area, that is going to affect the wildlife and other people. Hoarders beware: Collecting everything you can might just be a really bad idea.

That is, of course, if you decide to play honestly. In such a tight environment, you might find it easier to take the things that you need by stealing them or by using outright violence. If you do, you'll quickly discover a core theme of this upcoming game: actions have consequences.

Being a Butterfly

Aside from the survival elements and interacting with the NPCs, the biggest appeal of City 20 is its NPCs and the factions they belong to. What you decide to do will have very real effects on the world, either for good or ill. We were shown a few examples in the hands-off presentation.

In one example, the player character decided to poison the town's water supply. After the sabotage was discovered, it was no longer possible to easily get water from the town well; the NPCs reacted and placed it under guard to prevent another such incident.

Another example showed the consequences of theft. The player character got away with stealing from a shop, but these missing items made the shopkeeper extremely security-conscious. He barricaded his house and stayed up all night to protect his stuff. Break in again, and you'll find yourself in a fight for your life.

You might think to stay on the straight and narrow, but the faction system adds an additional layer of complexity; gaining favor with one person could cause you to lose favor with another. It seems, to me, that there won't really be any "good" choices or "correct" choices — there are simply choices, and the NPCs will respond, somehow, to the decisions you made.

At first, the city itself will be a fixed map. This, too, will eventually have a layer of randomization according to Untold Games. Parts of the city will be handcrafted, but the order in which they appear will eventually be randomly assembled, somewhat similar to the randomized level layouts in Receiver.

The unique game design of City 20 certainly sounds like it will be an interesting experience depending on how exactly it's implemented. It will be interesting to see how players will push boundaries and test the reactive world that Untold Games is building for City 20. You'll be able to find out for yourself when it launches in Summer 2024.

We saw City 20 in a hands-off virtual presentation with the developers. All screenshots were provided by the publisher.