Pharaoh: A New Era
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About the Game
Immerse yourself in the history of Ancient Egypt with 50 missions and over 100 gameplay hours in Pharaoh: A New Era, a remake of Pharaoh (and the expansion Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile), one of the best city builders from the golden age of Sierra Entertainment. Stone by stone, build your city and manage all aspects of its development to ensure it prospers and makes you a powerful and revered Pharaoh.
Develop your city by cultivating the fertile lands along the banks of the Nile valley. Erect the iconic monuments of Ancient Egypt, including the pyramids, the Sphinx and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Build temples and mausoleums to help manage all aspects of your city’s health and culture as well as the predominant polytheistic religion of the time.
Ensure your city is prosperous enough to deal with economic or political crises, or even plundering by enemies. A Pharaoh takes care of its people and does whatever it can to earn the favour of the gods.
Pharaoh: A New Era celebrates 20 years since the release of the famous franchise with a complete remake, including more than 50 playable missions and over 100 hours of gameplay. Rediscover the map and mission editor mode that allows you to shape your very own Egypt over thousands of years.
The "Campaign" mode teaches you the game basics while allowing you to experience a unique story in the heart of Ancient Egypt and explore all aspects of life in a thriving city.
You have everything at your disposal to build an entire city and manage all its fundamental elements to ensure it flourishes: the economy, internal and external trade, culture, health, agriculture, education, etc. To help you monitor your progress, various indicators show you the overall well-being of your city and its residents.
The journey back in time is really brought to life with this Ultra HD remake, which upgrades the gameplay mechanics to modern standards and completely redesigns the captivating soundtrack and gorgeous isometric 2D graphics.
● Rediscover the classic city builder Pharaoh and its expansion, Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile, in an all-new remake
● Explore Ancient Egypt and its 4,000 years of history across 50 missions
● Marvel at Ancient Egypt’s most iconic and beautiful monuments with completely overhauled Ultra HD graphics
● Erect the Egypt of your dreams with the map editor mode
Game Discussion
Steam User 13
I was a little concerned going into this game as I am a massive original Pharoh fan, i played sooo mucch of it when i was young, BUT this game is almost perfect. Its the game I love with a few quality of life improvements and its fantastic. There have been many HD remakes of games that just dont wory but this isnt one of them. Amazing game now with HD GFX awsome.
There are a few things I have noticed that are different to the original but they are very small
- The police done kill the crocodiles?? im pretty sure they did in the original
- The bazar delivery ladies take items from the granry / storage that they dont need. For example i could be at the start of the game and they are taking treasure from the storage yard. Pretty sure they only took what they needed at that current housing level in the original.
- I used to build the houses 4 tiles across with roads on either side in the original but that dosnt work in this version i have to do rows of 2. Not a big deal i very quickly adapted but its just something i noticed.
- All the walls / towers are pointless in this version with the change in combat system right? as no troops attack the city.
This are very small problems in what is a fantastic remake.
Steam User 13
This is good!
The walls and towers now have a purpose, the military is flatter, but at the same time it is more challenging than killing everything with two squads of archers.
I like all the changes, to be honest. I haven't encountered any technical issues in the last 20 hours of gameplay.
Strongly recommend!
Steam User 21
If you can get over the cartoonish art style that reminds you of mobile slops, there is nostalgic joy of a classic to be found.
Steam User 10
I enjoy it, but its so jank and broken. Monuments take so long to build that I end up just sitting there for doing nothing except having an occasional festival for a god. I think had I not played and had a great fondness for the original, that I would not have a really good time here. But I did! So I think it depends on who you are
Steam User 14
It is no where near as bad as some players would have you believe bugs maybe I'm sure I will find some, art style is fine its not fun but its not bad and during gameplay found myself as usual more worried about management than the art style nothing will beat the original but if we knock people trying to bring back the classics noone else will bring them. They have made changes so far some good some would not say bad but maybe less relevant the ai is better give it a try its not as bad as some people are making it out to be i was around at the release of the original game but those times are gone and this is a good honest try at making something faithful but also adding in some improvements
*edit*
read the tutorial prompts in the beginning there's more than people think in the way of quality of life improvements without ruining what the original game was
Steam User 8
It's about what I remember from the OG, which is one of the first city builder greats. Some stuff isn't happening the way I remember it (I remember police activity in stopping crime being more visible). Alas, not everything is what we remember as kids, so who knows.
The game holds up. I wish there were more speed-up options, but it's otherwise still a great city builder, even in 2026.
Steam User 5
TLDR: While lovingly recreated and reproduced, it feels like a missed opportunity, and also suffers several frustrating bugs.
General Thoughts/Overview:
The old Sierra city builders were great games in their time. Pharaoh: A New Era (PANE) faithfully recreates the classic game, and in some ways has done an excellent job. But first, a synopsis! We are the omniscient controller of a city. We build the housing, the industry, the military, the trade supply chains, and the temples to the gods. At our direction monuments rise form the sands, and the city thrives or dies. It’s all very quaint when you think about it, but as a premise it works nicely. The levels find us in the shoes of various governors throughout the long history of Egypt, with different resources and buildings available to achieve our goals.
The thing I feel I need to say before the nitty-gritty, is that a good remaster of a game looks and plays the way you remember it playing, NOT the way it actually played… and in that regard, unfortunately, PANE fails. If anything this game is TOO faithful to the original, but I’ll get to that.
Pros:
The old city builders were big hits in their time, and unsurprisingly this rebuild hits all the correct beats. The addictive gameplay loop remains exactly that, and it is as satisfying to build a city from nothing into a thriving metropolis today as it was 25 years ago.
The mechanical updates let the game run more smoothly and faster than I remember, which also improves the animation and general feel of the game visually. It also reduced the lag I used to get in this game in my mega cities significantly, as well as letting me zoom significantly further out than I ever remember.
The sheer scale and volume of missions and customisations is just fantastic. A single run through of the campaign has put me in at close to 100 hours. As far as value for money goes that’s pretty decent. If you enjoy the come-up, then this really has it in spades for you.
Cons:
Bugs… Bugs everywhere… From broken immigration, to tax not working, to monuments not building, to levels not triggering the right continuations and events or finishing, to even the employed staff not doing their jobs… this game is a hot mess, and has no right to be this far in. These critical issues should have been patched by now.
I’m unsure who the global recruitment pool is for. So, the devs included some “QoL” upgrades… but some of them are necessary, such as wildlife attacks off (because the police don’t fight the hostile animals for some reason) and then there’s the afore mentioned global recruitment pool. Why? The whole point of the walker system was to add challenge and create a living city with limitations adding depth and complexity. If you jus, turn that off, you lose half the point of the game… I don’t get it.
New combat system is just bad. I can see why they did it to strip back costs and make thigns simpler, I guess… but it renders all defensive buildings moot – and even if you WIN fights, you often lose a chunk of your buildings, even ones entirely enclosed in walls, for no apparent reason. Very frustrating.
Missed opportunities abounds. The real issue I have with PANE, is exactly what I said in the start, a remake should play how you remember, not how it actually was. I remember bazaars being significantly smarter. I remember the trading system being more complex and not being certain. I remember the culture systems not letting just build 6 libraries and juggler stations in a line at the end of the map to pull up a rating…
Suggested improvements:
Road block settings. The main issue I’ve always had is the binary nature of these badboys. Let me let job seekers through, but not the working staff. I don’t NEED it, but it would make life easy.
Prebuild templates. Give me X blank templates, and let me build my perfect nexus, then place it down as a complete whole as far as I can with what I have.
More undo options, especially while the game is paused.
Faster time skip, for when I’m functionally done, I’m just waiting on trade and the monuments to actually build.
Overall Recommendation:
Overall I do recommend PANE. The things I have issues with are the bits that didn’t translate well to modern rigs, and the things they DIDN’T iterate on. I like city builders, I like this city builder, I liked the game it was 25 years ago too.
I recommend this to fans of the original games. While it lacks in many aspects, it does do a good enough job as a remake to warrant a bit of attention. I recommend this to citybuilder fans in general, and I recommend this to people who are after a low stress highly organisational game. This is for people who enjoy or don’t mind a bit of micromanaging in their strategy.
I do not recommend this to people who find minutia and organisation fun, I do not recommend this to people looking for a grand empire building strategy, and I do not recommend this to people looking for some fast paced action, or a strong story. This is all about that organisation.
So yeah, give PANE a go if you’re up for a classic ride into an older game format we just don’t see enough of these days.
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