This is Niche Early Access. In this column, we regularly showcase various promising games that are currently in some form of early access or development, and haven’t reached full release. Please let us know if there’s a game you want us to showcase!

I’m back with another batch of promising games that recently entered Steam Early Access. Even if you don’t like buying games in Early Access, remember to wishlist any games that catch your attention so you’ll be notified when they get a full release.

Here’s 5 Early Access games that might be worth your attention:

Iratus: Lord of the Dead
Developer: Unfrozen
Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
Platform: Windows PC  
Price: $24.99 (Price may increase)

First up this week is Iratus: Lord of the Dead, a game I’ve personally been excited for. The easy elevator pitch for Iratus is that its Darkest Dungeon played from the perspective of the unholy abominations invading the world of the living. You play as Iratus, an ancient and powerful necromancer that has just been freed from his tomb. Raise an army of undead creatures and fight your way out of the prison that you were sealed in a millennia ago so you can make the world above pay for their defiance. As a necromancer, you will refresh your losses by gathering the bodies of those that stand in your way to summon new minions, and you’ll use their looted valuables to upgrade yourself and your lair.

Iratus: Lord of the Dead is expected to get a full release next Spring.

Founders’ Fortune
Developer: Oachkatzlschwoaf Interactive
Platform: Windows PC
Price: $18 (Price will increase)

Founders’ Fortune is this week’s obligatory sandbox town management game. Establish a thriving colony in dangerous new lands by gathering resources, constructing shelters, researching new technologies, and forging tools, weapons, and armor. You’ll need to take care of the physical and mental wellbeing of your colonists as well. Goblin raids, disease, injuries, and mental trauma are but some of the dangers that your colonists will have to deal with as they tame uncharted territories.

Founders’ Fortune will remain in Early Access for around a year.

Aeon’s End
Developer: Handelabra Games
Platforms: Windows PC, Mac, Linux
Price: $17.99 (Price will increase)

Aeon’s End is a digital adaptation of a popular deckbuilding board game, and is being made by the same developer that created digital adaptations of One Deck Dungeon and Sentinels of the Multiverse. You build a team of four mages tasked with defending the city of Gravehold against the Nameless, otherworldly beings that come through breaches in reality to attack the mortal world. As a deckbuilding game, you’ll start with a deck of basic cards and use aether to purchase new cards and open additional breaches to expand your casting abilities. Unlike other deckbuilding games, you don’t discard your hand at the end of every turn, forcing you to carefully plan your discards and draws based on the resources you have at the moment.

Aeon’s End will be in Early Access for several months.

Planetoid Pioneers Online
Developer: Data Realms
Platform: Windows PC
Price: $9.99 (Price may increase)

Planetoid Pioneers Online is the first online game by Data Realms, developers of Cortex Command and the original Planetoid Pioneers. As the name implies, Planetoid Pioneers Online is more or less an online version of the original game, and allows four players to team up and explore planets together, or murder each other with the game’s hilarious physics-based weapons, traps, and construction mechanics.

Planetoid Pioneers Online is aiming to leave Early Access by the end of 2019.

Biotope
Developer: MBL Development
Publisher: 2tainment GmbH
Platforms: Windows PC, Mac
Price: $19.99 (Price may increase)

Finally, we come to Biotope, an aquarium management sim. Build, maintain, and cultivate your own tank based on your monthly budget. Earn more money to expand your tanks by breeding fish and plants to sell to fellow aquarists. The game uses a lot of authentic equipment and science, meaning that the game can also help teach you a few things about how to build and care for your own aquarium of freshwater fish.

Biotope will remain in Early Access for around six months to a year.

Which of these games are you interested in? Are you playing any recent Early Access releases that we missed? Tell us more in the comments below.