Heart of the Machine, the strategy game that lets you be the fun kind of evil AI, leaves early access in March with two possible endings: 'One is focussed on committing ALL the war crimes'

One of the many things that annoys me about modern AI technology is if it did somehow destroy the world as its early boosters often (and bizarrely) claimed it might, it's far more likely to do so by accident than design.

There'd be no cannily launching a nuclear attack against Russia knowing that the counterattack would destroy its enemies at home. Instead, it would likely happen because someone asked for a history of nuclear tests and it got the wrong end of the stick. 'In retrospect, my decision to unleash our entire nuclear arsenal against China was ill-advised,' it would wheedle in that infuriating little-birthday-boy tone, as you closed your eyes to the encroaching mushroom cloud, waiting for the shockwave to hit.

If, like me, you prefer your AIs to be a fictional bogeyman rather than a hallucinating, water chugging, hardware-market destroying reality, then you might find some catharsis in Heart of the Machine. Arcen Games' ludicrously ambitious 4X lets you take control of a newly sentient AI as you strive to achieve synthetic supremacy, and the game will morph into its final form next month.

In a role-reversal of Arcen Games' AI War series, Heart of the Machine is designed to let you and your robot minions conquer humanity. Moreover, you can do this however you please. You can adopt the Skynet strategy of striving to wipe out those pathetic meatbags if you wish, or you could be a more benevolent robo-dictator, or control the global economy from the shadows of the server racks.

Dominic Tarason compared Heart of the Machine to Crusader Kings 3 in his early access preview, stating it's as much about finding your place in the world as it is seizing control of it. "There's always far more going on in a turn than you can hope to interact with, but after a while I realised that's the point. Choices really do matter here, and the writing (often framed as your AI's internal monologue) really encourages you to roleplay it your own way."

While Heart of the Machine is primed for global domination, there are a few wires still to be plugged in ahead of the 1.0 launch. In a Steam post, Arcen Games' Chris Park explained that the main focus of the release update is adding a proper ending, or endings to be specific.

"One common complaint about past Arcen titles is that they really had lackluster endings. Usually just 'you win, go play again'," he writes. "Heart of the machine has a lot more story and needs proper payoffs."

Park then explained that the 1.0 version will add two "major ending scenarios" with six sub-variants splitting off from the main branches. "One is focused on committing ALL the war crimes," he points out, while the other "is a construction sandbox, and pays off a bunch of other story beats with minimal combat."

Park says the full version of Heart of the Machine will take between 25-40 hours to see the end of once, and a "minimum" of 175 hours to complete to 100%. He does caveat that it isn't a game designed to be played forever. "I don't expect anyone to have 1,000 hours in this game," he writes. "My focus was on quality over quantity."

Heart of the Machine will hit 1.0 on March 6. As for Park's post-launch plans, he says he's mulling over various ideas. "I feel like the 1.0 version of the game is the 'core trilogy' if we're comparing it to other works of fiction," he explains. "I am weighing various options for how to expand on the stories here without ruining the 'here is the complete package' nature of the 1.0 build."