Nightwater looks like a curious blend of secrets, exploration, crafting and automation

One to stick into your list to keep an eye on is Nightwater, an open world exploration game that mixes in crafting and automation in a strange world.

"A new reality materializes. You find yourself on a solitary island, floating on a sea of liquid void and starlight, ringed by impassable mountains. This world is a mysterious place, yet strangely familiar." - Steam page

Here you explore, build, craft and eventually automate your way through it with you progress going through the ages. Starting off with primitive tools, and eventually up to modern machines with you gradually expanding the island into something much bigger to eventually reach a Lighthouse to reveal all the secrets. The developer mentions how it tells a "deep, personal story that is never handed to you" and as you explore you'll find lots of secrets requiring you to piece together what Nightwater really is.

Check out the trailer below:

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More from the Steam page:

Nightwater is a game about gathering, collecting, and managing resources. There are multiple unique biomes, each with its own resources and secrets to unveil. Every resource features its own progression: gather by hand or automate with machines to hit each resource’s milestone goals and unlock new buildings, crafts, and powerful buffs. Explore every biome to discover 20+ resources and gain access to 100+ buildings, crafts, and buffs.

It’s fun to gather resources yourself, but it’s even more fun to build machines that do the work for you! Choose from 60+ buildings to construct farmers, assemblers, and storage units, link them with pipes, and automate every part of your production chain. You can build as many machines as you want and move or deconstruct them at any time without losing items. Automate all resources and their crafts, and unlock powerful late game buildings to make your factories faster, more efficient, and even bigger!

Use the time while your machines handle the work to progress in one of five unique minigames. Each minigame features its own gameplay loop, items, upgrades, and progression, unlocking new buildings, crafts, and buffs you can use outside the minigame to grow your factory and boost efficiency. The minigames are optional, but they offer fresh variety, their own sense of progression, and powerful rewards.

Due to release sometime in Q4 2026.