I think Seed is the dawn of a new age for MMOs after spending one month building a metropolis with strangers, this imperfect yet addictive life sim feels like the next big thing

Date:
Sat, 15 Aug 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Description:
Our hands-on impressions of the newly released MMO Seed.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter If youd have told me that in
the fine year of 2026, Id be back to my hobgoblin ways of racing home to pour hours into a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, Id probably have
laughed you off. Under the Radar Under the Radar is our way of highlighting great games that might have passed you by. Through a regular mix of news stories and features, we'll cover great experiences that we feel haven't
found the audience they deserve. Read the full series here . However, here I am, watching the clock until 5:30 PM so I can race home and log into Seed , a new life simulator from Klang Games that I think could herald a new renaissance for MMOs. Summer Game Fest 2026 gave my colleague Dashiell Wood the chance to go hands-on with Seed , and his strong first impression held true when I got my hands on an early access code a little under a month ago. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here:

Co-founded by veterans from CCP Games, the creators of Eve Online, the team behind Seed certainly has the credentials If you love games like Eco , The Sims and Factorio , youll be just as hooked as I am.

The game has already attracted a healthy audience, with thousands of active daily players. Its a promising start, though it has to be said that a lot of work will be necessary to retain that audience and continue to grow in the months to come. You may like Seed is shaping up to be the most revolutionary life simulator since The Sims Outbound review: a fun road trip that doesnt quite have the mileage to go all day Best of Summer Game Fest 2026 all the biggest, most exciting, and most innovative things on show

Still, I spend every waking moment craving Seed . In the last month, I became mayor, witnessed the rapture, and built a metropolis with total strangers
and I cant wait to see what the game throws at me next. A world of our own
Our society, Forest Dwellers, is coming along nicely (Image credit: Klang Games) In short, your goal in Seed is simple: work with other real players in your randomly generated society and colonize the planet of Avesta, building a thriving community with a local economy and, later, global trade. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

Because servers run 24/7, your playable Seedlings continue working and caring for themselves while you're offlineprovided you set them up with balanced automations and basic necessities. Theres even a beta mobile app where you
can check in and issue commands via chat; more on that later.

Its surprisingly challenging, especially if youre part of a foundling community. Your Seedlings arent always easy to keep alive when resources are scarce, meaning access to clean water and cooked food is an urgent undertaking. Seedlings can suffer from various health ailments and even die
as they go about their lives; I lost count of how many times mine developed jaundice from compulsively drinking murky water.

It took me a solid week to nail down my Seedling's schedule balancing needs against production lines, storage, trade, and resource shortages. At times, its a rollercoaster ride: the highs of logging on to see tens of thousands in revenue, and the low sof discovering that one misclick in an "if/then" automation halted all production. What to read next Fable was easily one of the best things I saw at Summer Game Fest 2026, and I cant wait to explore
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All societies live on one sprawling world map, and as you progress, youll be vying with other player groups for territory and resources, and for
attracting new players (with their wallets) to your town.

For now, at least, that feels like a distant problem; many societies are
still developing. Thats part of what makes Seed so exciting as an MMO; it really does feel like the game is going to keep evolving with its player
base, and already the choices from other societies have had a direct impact
on how we run our own Life as an elected official Image 1 of 2 (Image credit: Klang Games) (Image credit: Klang Games) Image 1 of 2 View Original Image 2
of 2 View Original For the past month, my society inexplicably elected me mayor an honor that gave me a front-row seat to Seeds complexity. Societies evolve in stages based on shared goals, and with each step you gain new roles in government, features like legislation and slots for more Seedlings to
join.

My own community has just become a Metropolis, with several of our more
active players quickly training up their Seedlings into careers like carpentry, metalwork, tailoring and medicine. We've launched businesses from foundries and chemical plants to hotels and cafes to handle to service the
40+ Seedlings in our group and participate in global trade. Its tough, but
its honest work.

Im also the proud magnate behind a furniture-making business, with my Seedlings specializing in carpentry and tailoring, and Ive hired several players on the server into the fold to help me haul deliveries and craft furniture both to sell and furnish my two hotel businesses. Youre
incentivised to pay your Seedlings well; your society's average salary and
the balance of wealth is a key metric by which to attract new players, as are any society-level benefits you offer new players like bonuses, tax legislation, new business grants and even workers rights.

Finding the balance between this and also keeping the game fun for all involved is vital and challenging. As I write this, a disagreement between two of the larger business owners in my society has led to a small fallout
and calls for legislation around land ownership. Trust is essential, but hard-won among strangers. Surviving the rapture (Image credit: Klang Games) There have already been quite a few exciting dramas in our society.

We founded on the first day of early access, so many players came through our doors to test the waters in Seed , only to then log out and never return. There are no NPCs in Seed , meaning all members of your society are real people their activities need to be automated within the Schedule menu, or else your Seedlings will just kind of bimble around aimlessly.

We quickly discovered that even with well-populated schedules, those AFK players wreaked havoc in what I've dubbed 'The Great Haulening'. With many of them set to harvest and haul goods, our society was quickly overloaded with piles of resources and overwhelmed storage that disrupted our ability to
trade globally by filling up our mailbox with junk. Our solution to The Great Haulening was to place ample storage with specific resource configurations to keep things tidy. (Image credit: Klang Games) Then there are the bugs. Oh lord, the bugs. The marketplace where you trade with other societies has been broken pretty much since day dot, and while recent commitments to fix this from the developers are reassuring, its certainly created some disparity
among the societies that figured out workarounds and those that couldnt.

My favorite bug though has to be The Rapture: the servers went down for two hours, which stopped time fully in Avesta for, to my knowledge, the first time.

All automations were paused, however all Seedling needs continued to depreciate, meaning every player with the companion app got a simultaneous notification that their Seedlings were dying and had to log on in a panic
(for me, that was at 2 AM) to revive them. Thankfully, a few of our society members were online to run around and resuscitate the 95% of us who had collapsed, but not everyone was so lucky... The Achilles heel My colleague Dash joined the fun, but couldn't play for a short while. His Seedling was
one of the Great Haulening's most avid participants. (Image credit: Klang Games) While Im loving the game in itself, another potentially not-so-rosy element to Seed is its divisive use of generative AI.

Now, Im typically conservative with the technology; I dont think it should be used unless genuinely additive, especially in gaming, and definitely not frivolously while concerns remain about the impact of AI on our environment.

In Seed , you can use gen AI to chat with your Seedlings, which Ive used mostly as a way to give them instructions to consume things or do tasks, especially while Im away from the game and when life-threatening issues
arise. Youre also occasionally incentivized to casually chat with them as
part of your daily tasks, which is quirky at first but tires quickly. (Image credit: Klang Games) The second primary use for gen AI is P.A.M, the in-game assistant that can help you learn how to play the game.

With Seed being so complex and in-depth, this is a genuinely useful resource and, by and large, its been a helpful companion with all of my requests. Its
a neat way to avoid having a pages-and-pages-long companion guide, but ultimately its still prone to getting things wrong, often has broken links
and sometimes just gives up and recommends that you ask the World Chat.

Its not inextricably linked to the gameplay, but its also omnipresent, and if you are one to take a bold stance against the use of AI, itll potentially put you off this otherwise brilliant game.

That being said, you might also find the pricing structure a turn-off.

Youre given one Seedling slot to play with, which will live for up to 120 real-world days. When they die, you lose everything if you have no other living Seedlings, so youll probably want a second Seedling Slot and another Seedling Life which youll have to pay for Pollen, an in-game currency you
can earn by levelling up your user profile or with real money.

These come in four tiers, starting with a basic slot that offers 100 real-world days of a Seedlings life all the way up to Platinum, a permanent slot full pricing information for all in-game purchases can be found here . This on top of an already $30/29.99 (roughly 25) game might feel a little too close to a subscription scheme... and it kind of is.

Personally, I enjoy the game enough and understand enough about the costs of server upkeep to justify having spent some of my hard-earned cash on a permanent slot, but for some, the threat of losing everything when their Seedling dies and starting from scratch is disincentivizing. For others, it means an endless opportunity to graft; its down to the player to decide what feels more fun to them.

I do share reservations on both the use of AI and the subscription-like
costs; but I dont think either have to define my overarching enjoyment of the game, which has been immense.

Ive sunk hours and hours into refining my strategy, working with my community towards our shared goals setting up our local economy, and had a good laugh with many of the players Ive met so far from all around the world.

Its a real throwback to the heyday of online gaming, and if it sticks, I
think Seed could inspire other developers to take a risk on what is, admittedly, a hard product to monetize and upkeep in the increasingly competitive gaming market.

I hope it does, because Ive definitely got the itch. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!



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