SURVIVAL TOWNBUILDER ‘ROMESTEAD’ HITS STEAM EARLY ACCESS TODAY

Rebuild Ancient Rome, earn the favour of the gods, and take on mythological foes in Steam Next Fest’s Top 10 most played demo!

Watch the launch trailer here.

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, 26th May 2026 – Today, Three Friends, the industry veterans behind Valheim and Minecraft, and Swedish indie studio Beartwigs, are pleased to announce that their survival townbuilder Romestead is available now in Steam Early Access. This release follows an impressive reception of the game, which has accumulated over 300,000 wishlists since its reveal and became the Top 10 Most Played Demo during February’s Steam Next Fest.

In Romestead, players are thrust into a vibrant pixel-art world, where they must rebuild Ancient Rome from its ruins, either alone or joining up to seven friends in co-op. As they expand their settlement, players will gather resources, find survivors and put them to work, construct buildings and roads, and take on legendary beasts, all while earning favour with the gods through offerings and heroic deeds.

Building on the success of the demo, Romestead’s Early Access release offers an even richer foundation from which it will continue to be developed, with the introduction of new buildings and citizen vocations, expanded settlement systems, a fiery new biome that will challenge even the bravest of adventurers, and more. See Romestead’s key features below:

• A fiery new volcanic biome expands the world beyond the two featured in the demo, introducing additional dungeons and two new bosses for players to conquer, bringing the total number of these legendary foes to five, with more to follow throughout development
  
  
• New and expanded citizen occupations, including the Carpenter role, enabling citizens to assist with construction and help automate day-to-day settlement tasks
  
  
• Automated Trade Routes with the new Trading Post building, allowing players to improve town logistics by more easily transporting resources between settlements
  
  
• A brand new decoration mode offering greater creative freedom to personalise towns using an inventory-free system for collecting, placing, and customising furniture and objects
  
  
• Enhanced inventory management to more easily keep track of your treasures with the addition of a sorting functionality and the option to expand the player inventory

“The Early Access launch of Romestead is our biggest milestone so far and we’re so excited to be able to officially open the game up to both new and longtime fans,” says Sam Bloom, Co-Founder and Developer at Beartwigs. “While we’ll absolutely be celebrating this moment today, this is just the next big step in a long road ahead, and we’re already working on the next update, with a roadmap to follow!”

With Romestead, developer Beartwigs seek to reinvent the retro art style and the survival genre, developing their own game engine, Candide, to help realise their vision. Romestead’s philosophy is focused on cutting out the tedium of the survival crafting genre by removing unnecessary friction, including omitting tool and weapon durability, alongside streamlining inventory systems, minimising micromanagement and allowing players to spend more time exploring.

Whether players will restore Ancient Rome to its former glory through battle, building a flourishing settlement, or shaping a powerful empire through trade and expansion, the experience adapts to suit every playstyle.

Romestead is available now on Steam priced at $13.99/€13.99/£11.99. Players can purchase the game today and begin rebuilding their empire. An official press kit containing the latest visual assets can be found here.

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About Three Friends
Three Friends is a boutique indie publisher founded by industry veterans behind Minecraft, Valheim, and Deep Rock Galactic. Based in Sweden, they focus on helping primarily Swedish and Nordic developers turn strong ideas into standout games by providing hands-on guidance, financial backing, and a gameplay-first approach to publishing. By partnering with teams early in development, Three Friends ensures they have the time, resources, and support needed to bring their vision to life.

About Beartwigs
Beartwigs is a Swedish development studio based in Linköping that aims to create great games and reinvent the retro style of pixel art design. Their debut title Romestead is a multiplayer survival crafting game in which Rome has fallen, and players must rebuild the city and face mythological beasts of legend.

About Romestead
Romestead is a co-op survival game based around a mythical fall of Ancient Rome with a fantasy twist, developed by Beartwigs and published by a brand new, 4-person publishing team including Mojang’s first employee and the lead publisher who discovered Valheim. Players will be tasked with rebuilding their Roman settlement, fighting off hordes of undead, and hunting beasts of myth. Either solo or co-op, they’ll uncover the secrets of their fallen empire hidden in a gorgeous pixel art world.

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