Iron Meridian

Iron Meridian drops you onto a cracked frontier world where you build outposts, route supply lines and fend off raider waves. What sets it apart is pacing — timers are short, and you're never locked out for hours waiting on a building to finish.

The strategy is in logistics. Place a refinery too far from your defenses and a raid will cut it off; cluster everything and you choke your own expansion. I rebuilt my first base three times before it finally held, and each failure taught me something.

The interface is clean and the tutorial doesn't nag. There's a light online layer where you can trade resources with other players, but you can ignore it entirely and still enjoy the whole campaign solo.

What we liked

• Short, respectful timers
• Logistics-driven base design
• Full solo campaign, optional online layer