Nova Roma: The PC demo of the Roman city builder is now playable

Hooded Horse now lets you play the PC demo of Nova Roma, which allows you to try out a large part of the city builder's DNA – long before the planned early access begins on January 22, 2026. Hooded Horse's title isn't “just” another ancient city builder, but a sandbox in which water management, worship of the gods, and external threats already form an exciting triangle of tension.

The demo offers the first few hours of gameplay on small, procedurally generated islands, where you embody a group of citizens fleeing a decadent Roman Empire to found a new city. The atmosphere of Nova Roma is pleasant and relaxed from the start. You discover the basic production chains and initial technological advances that quickly lead you to the great achievements of ancient Rome: aqueducts, dams, irrigation systems.

The core of the gaming experience is already in place: starting from a fragile hamlet, strive for a “new Pax Romana” – provided you keep the gods happy and the barbarians at bay.

The Nova Roma demo (link on our product page) currently offers only a single difficulty level, with rather generous resource stocks and rarely blocked construction sites, making it ideal for getting an impression without pressure. At the same time, you can see how quickly everything can become complicated as soon as there is a bottleneck somewhere in the production chain.