Exark Launches on Steam with Four Great Houses and a Fifth on the Way
What launched
Robot Cat Games released Exark (AppID 3435610) on August 18, 2026 — a run-based engine-builder framed as inventory management aboard a flying ark. Players take the role of captain-general, tasked with keeping crew morale intact across a nine-flight journey toward something called the Rim of the world.
The core loop involves generating four resources — food, gold, production, and inspiration — while synergizing hundreds of buildings, crew members, items, and relics. Enemy sky-ships and creatures provide the opposition; surviving all nine flights reaches the Event Horizon.
What the full version adds over the demo
- All four Great Houses: House Arioch, House Mnesis, House-in-Exile, and House Imperia — each with a distinct design identity (ingenious, industrious, symbiotic, and necromantic, respectively)
- House Imperia caveat: placeholder art remains for its buildings; pixel artists are finalizing assets with a patch expected within weeks
- The Hazard System: unlocked at Rank 1, adds selectable difficulty modifiers to runs
- The Star Atlas: earn Star Shards per run, forge them into Stars, and slot those into the Atlas for blessings paired with curses
A fifth faction — the Infinite Kingdom, robot-knights aboard the ark Carcharodon — is noted as coming in a subsequent update, though no timeframe is given beyond that description.
For players who tried the demo, the launch represents a substantial expansion of content, tempered by the honest disclosure that one house ships visually incomplete. Feedback channels are open via Steam forums and Discord.