Begin as a primitive organism on an alien planet and guide it through a watery microbe-scale world. Survive by finding the compounds your cell needs while other species compete for resources and may become predators or prey. After reproducing, use the species editor to change your cell between generations. Add or rearrange biological parts for functions such as energy production, movement, defense, and feeding, while weighing their benefits against resource and energy costs. Other species evolve through population-based simulation as you adapt and explore different regions with distinct conditions. The game’s main completed experience is the Microbe Stage, with progression toward more complex cells and colonies; later stages are present only in limited or prototype form.
Guide a primordial microbe on an alien world, gather resources, redesign its cells, and adapt as rival species evolve.
An evolution simulation game. Take control of your species in the environment and edit your species as a whole. Compete with other evolving species for resources on an alien planet.
Developed by Revolutionary Games Studio · Published by Revolutionary Games Studio
Begin as a primitive organism on an alien planet and guide it through a watery microbe-scale world. Survive by finding the compounds your cell needs while other species compete for resources and may become predators or prey.
After reproducing, use the species editor to change your cell between generations. Add or rearrange biological parts for functions such as energy production, movement, defense, and feeding, while weighing their benefits against resource and energy costs.
Other species evolve through population-based simulation as you adapt and explore different regions with distinct conditions. The game’s main completed experience is the Microbe Stage, with progression toward more complex cells and colonies; later stages are present only in limited or prototype form.
Players often enjoy Thrive for its detailed biology, species-design choices, and strategic evolution, with different ways to gather energy and survive making experimentation appealing. Many compare its microbe gameplay to a more science-focused take on Spore’s cell stage. Some reviews also describe a steep learning curve, tricky resource balance, and limited content in the current stages.
Full Game Details
From the Devs
In Thrive, you take control of an organism on an alien planet, beginning with the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). Your goal is to survive in the environment, adapt your species by adding mutations, and thrive. Other species will emerge to compete with yours. They will evolve via a population dynamics driven simulation with random mutations - you must improve and spread your species to surpass them. The success of your species depends both on your skill in surviving as an individual and the changes you make in the editor.
Create your own Species
Use over 25 different parts to create your own unique species. Place mitochondria to power your cell, use chloroplasts to eat sunlight, or add a pilus to stab unsuspecting prey. Keep the membrane of your cells flexible to eat others in one bite, or add a tough cell wall to protect yourself. The choice is yours, as you evolve to survive.
Fight to Survive
Travel through your environment, collecting the resources you need to survive and reproduce. Gather them from clouds and chunks, or steal them from other species and use every tool you gave yourself in the editor to prevent being eaten by someone else.
Evolution Simulation
Watch as the other species of the world evolve alongside you. They adapt to become ever better at surviving. Whether that be by becoming stronger and more efficient in using their food sources, avoiding predation, or choosing to become better at hunting you instead.
A Dynamic World
Explore a world of different regions with varying environments. Choose to live anywhere from scalding hydrothermal vents in the deep sea, to freezing ice shelves on the surface. Even these environments themselves don’t stay the same; an asteroid impact or a global ice age might just ruin the day of photosynthesising bacteria.
A Variety of Playstyles
Use one of many ways to survive and thrive. Try a different gameplay style each playthrough, feeding yourself with photosynthesis, by turning poisonous hydrogen sulfide into sugar, burning chunks of iron, or even more exotic methods. Or, instead of making your own food, just eat everyone else.
And More
Learn about biology by using real compounds, organelles or parts inspired by real science
Review and plan future actions by looking at population simulation results and graphs
Use endosymbiosis to turn other species into a part of yourself
Learn the basics of the game with a light, interactive tutorial
Create experimental species in freebuild mode with removed editing limits
Play the in-development version of the next stage and see prototypes of future stages
The Present And The Future
In the Microbe Stage, which is the first and only complete stage of the game, you control a single microbe or a colony of microbes bound together. You swim through a watery environment to find the resources your cell needs to stay alive and to reproduce. Once you have reproduced, you enter the editor, where you can review how well your species and others are surviving, move to new biomes. And then modify your species: add new organelles, change your membrane, modify your cell's visuals, environmental tolerance and behaviour. Your goal is to become a more complex lifeform by first evolving the nucleus to become a eukaryote, then using binding agents to form cell colonies, the precursor to the first multicellular lifeforms.
The Multicellular Stage adds the ability to place multiple cells and customize their types. Your species will still interact with other microbes in the familiar microbial environment, but with new abilities and size that allows taking over the microbial world. This stage of the game is quite developed but multicellular-specific gameplay is still somewhat limited. Even further stages are included with the game but they are mostly just prototype level examples to show off our future vision.
The major goals of Thrive are to create engaging, compelling gameplay that respects our players’ intelligence, and remain as accurate as possible in our depiction of known scientific theory without compromising the former. Thrive is an open-source project, and anyone with game development skill is welcome to join our team. The game uses the open-source Godot Engine with the C# programming language.
If you don't have game development skills, you are still welcome to join our fan community. We would love to have you along for the long ride!
