After 12 years, an innovative sci-fi adventure with AI is being removed from Steam to be re-released in Early Access
Over the past years, technology has advanced significantly. Now, the developers of Bot Colony will finally be able to make the game they envisioned many years ago.
Recently, North Side Inc. reminded about their project Bot Colony, which was launched in Steam Early Access back in 2014. This sci-fi adventure was inspired by the science fiction novel Bot Colony: “a thriller about industrial espionage in the near future, written by Eugene Joseph. The novel explores the speech capabilities of future robots and introduces the fifth law of robotics: "act as humans do".”
The original Bot Colony is set to be removed from sale on Steam on September 28, as a new version called Bot Colony _redux is expected to be released next month:
While keeping the old game as a kind of historical artifact was interesting, the future is knocking, and we want to open the door by focusing on the new game we've been working on for several years. It became clear that having two games in parallel, under the same name, creates confusion when searching in the store.
As in the original, players in Bot Colony _redux will be able to communicate with and command characters. The game's concept has a long history — the authors “were ahead of their time” as they began exploring the possibilities of AI in video games more than 10 years ago.
Today, technology allows them to realize their original vision:
The concept of Bot Colony was presented at GDC in March 2009, and in 2014 the game was released in Early Access — it was ahead of its time; technology simply wasn't ready for our vision then. But we never stopped pursuing that dream. Now, in 2026, Bot Colony _Redux finally brings it to life: a futuristic sci-fi adventure where you play using unrestricted speech, interacting with well-developed characters who respond intelligently, with humor and emotion. This game has something for fans of many different genres, and players get the freedom to change the story with their own words — each playthrough is unique!
The developers said that Bot Colony _redux combines advanced AI and voice technologies (Azure STT, ChatGPT, emotional TTS from Elevenlabs) with North Side's advanced Natural Language Understanding (NLU) system, which will allow them to “take immersion to the next level.”
You can add Bot Colony _redux to your Steam wishlist via the following link. According to the description, the game will again be presented in Early Access format.
The page for the original Bot Colony on Steam can be found here.
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