New Cycle Early Access Review - The Final Verdict
208New Cycle is the latest survival city-builder out now on PC via Steam Early Access. It's a genre best defined by Frostpunk, one where moral decisions play as big of a part as managing resources and ensuring the future of in-game NPCs.
While New Cycle purports to offer those dilemmas, it doesn't prompt the same emotional investment. The events where choices could have rippling effects on your burgeoning settlement of survivors also offer little actual choice. That's before getting into the gameplay, with the skewed nature of disasters and the onset of sickness providing tedious difficulty spikes.
Even with all that in mind, New Cycle's current early access state doesn't offer much outside your usual city-builder. It could improve and grow into something more. For now, it leaves you wanting.