Overview
The Bustling World is an open-world sandbox RPG set in a fictional version of ancient China. It is developed by FireWo Games, a studio founded by a married couple that has since grown to over 50 people. The game has been in development for over five years.
There is no single genre label that fits. Press comparisons range from Kenshi to The Guild to early GTA. You can be a farmer, a merchant, a warlord, a martial artist, a criminal, or a city builder. The game does not pick one of these and make the others secondary. They all exist as parallel systems in the same sandbox.
The game does not have a traditional linear story. Game8 described it: "As a life simulation game, The Bustling World doesn't have a defined narrative or set story to progress through." Instead, there is a loose framing involving refugees, base building, and defeating rebellious forces, but the real story is whatever you decide to do.
Setting and art style
The world draws from Tang and Song Dynasty architecture, Chinese mythology, and traditional painting styles. The art team created over 5,000 hand-drawn textures. The developers have stated that no AI was used in the art production.
The game uses a 2.5D perspective with fully 3D rendering but a hand-painted visual style that looks like traditional Chinese artwork come to life. Clothing physics simulate historically accurate ancient Chinese garments, which the developers describe as a first in gaming.
Farming and animals
There are over 60 plant varieties, each requiring specific soil type, water, and temperature conditions. Farming is not just decoration. Crops feed into cooking, trade, and business management.
Over 30 animal species are available for materials, combat companions, and transportation. Breeding mechanics include mutation chances, and rare species can be found in the wild.
Crafting and building
The crafting system covers cooking, textile weaving, and metallurgy. Players can progress from manual craftsmanship to mass production by hiring workers and building production lines. There are roughly 1,000 craftable items.
Building uses nearly 2,000 components based on Tang and Song Dynasty architecture. You can buy and decorate properties, plan cities, assign NPC housing, and construct businesses from the ground up.
Business management
You can establish and run restaurants, hotels, inns, pharmacies, banks, pawn shops, cloth shops, and grain shops. Each business requires hiring employees, managing pricing, and competing against other establishments.
The Steam page mentions using "strategies and even underhanded tactics" for competitive advantage, which suggests sabotage and espionage are part of the business simulation.
Martial arts and combat
The game references "eighteen kinds of weapons" in the Jianghu, a nod to the traditional Chinese Eighteen Arms of Wushu. Players explore the world, find weapons, and obtain martial arts secrets from various sources.
Combat activities include bounty hunting, catching fugitives, wiping out bandit camps, and exploring temples, caves, and ruins. You can recruit martial artists to form a personal mercenary force. Martial arts tournaments exist as competitive events.
There is also a military layer. You can recruit and command armies, defend territory, and wage war against rival factions.
Factions and diplomacy
The world contains martial arts schools, underground gambling dens, secret banks, outlaw strongholds, secluded sects, and beggar gangs. Named factions include the Beggar Gang, Sunflower Sect, and Red Clothes Sect.
Player interactions with factions go far beyond quest-giving. You can trade with them, learn their techniques, uncover their secrets, manipulate them, join them, eliminate them, or rebuild them. For territories you control, you manage policy across military, culture, economy, and research.
Diplomacy with other factions is influenced by geography, military strength, and population. Options include peace talks, trade agreements, threats, alliances, espionage, and warfare.
Criminal activities
RetroLike described the game as an "ancient Chinese GTA." You can steal carriages, break into houses, operate in stealth with "night cloaks," form gangs, and accumulate a wanted level. The criminal path is a full gameplay loop, not just a side distraction.
NPC AI
Every NPC has independent personality, family ties, and social relationships. They autonomously decide where to live, where to work, whether to flee from war, and whether to avenge family members. Player actions alter NPC behavior across the world.
This is not scripted scheduling. NPCs make independent decisions based on their traits and the state of the world. If you destabilize a region, its residents react.
Activities
Beyond the main systems, the game includes fishing, painting, playing music, pet fighting card games, cooking competitions, horse racing, lion dancing, iron flower launching, and other activities drawn from Chinese cultural traditions.
Development status
FireWo Games launched a Kickstarter in December 2023 with an $80,000 target. It was canceled five days later after feedback about backer rewards. At the time, the game was reported as 60% complete. The studio promised to relaunch with better rewards.
The game accumulated over 150,000 Steam wishlists within 20 days of its initial announcement. It appeared at GDC 2025 in San Francisco, its first overseas event. The development team publishes regular monthly update diaries on Steam.
Platforms: PC via Steam and Epic Games Store. Mobile versions appear to be planned based on TapTap pre-registration pages. Expected release is 2026. No specific date has been announced.
Language support
Full audio and subtitles in English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, French, and German. Single-player only.