The Citadel Must Hold mixes classic RTS hero and army management with wave-survival gameplay, challenging players to defend their citadel against Monster Tides numbering in the hundreds. Between Tides, venture into the wilderness across distinct biomes to confront guarded Places of Power. Each Place of Power sends raiding parties against nearby player holdings until its guardians are defeated. Clearing one stops its raids and grants a powerful reward that can strengthen the hero, army or economy, recruit monsters to fight for the player, reshape the map, and more. Expand your city, explore for power, and prepare for the next Monster Tide.

Grow a settlement around the Citadel heart. Secure resources, expand production, train soldiers, and surround your city with walls, gates, and defense towers. Every expansion makes you stronger, but gives you more ground to protect.

Between Monster Tides, send your hero and army into the fog-covered wilderness. Beyond the temperate homeland lie distinct biomes, each with its own monsters, its own Places of Power, and its own feel underfoot as snow and ash kick up around your marching troops. Frost creatures chill whatever they strike, slowing movement and attacks, while the undead drain the soul with damage no armor can stop.

Places of Power are guarded landmarks, and they do not wait to be found. Each one sends raiding parties against your nearby holdings until its guardians are defeated. Clearing one stops its raids for good and grants a powerful reward: strengthen your hero, army, or economy, recruit monsters to fight for you, reshape the map itself, and more.

Between Tides there is no true rest: build, explore, fend off raids, and prepare for the coming Tide. Position your hero and soldiers at critical chokepoints, garrison your towers, reinforce threatened walls. Then the horns sound and the wilderness descends upon your gates. Every Tide is larger and more dangerous than the last. Pause the battle to assess the field, issue orders, and respond when monsters break through. Adapt when your defenses fail, and hold the Citadel against everything the world sends at it.

Begin each game by choosing a Founding Oath that changes what you can build and how you fight. Make your hero legendary, but give up the ability to train other units. Empower your army, but abandon walls entirely. Or choose a less restrictive blessing and build around its strengths.

After every Monster Tide you survive, select a Rally Decree to reinforce your strategy, cover a weakness, or transform how your forces fight.

The wilderness shapes the run too. Which Places of Power you clear, and in what order, decides which raids stop and which rewards you claim. A monster ally, a stronger hero, a richer economy, or a reshaped map can each carry your defense in a different direction.

Key Features

• Classic RTS combat with a powerful hero and multiple unit types.
• Build and expand a fortified settlement with layered defenses.
• Explore distinct biomes with their own enemies, Places of Power and environmental threats.
• Defeat Place of Power guardians to stop their raids and claim game-changing rewards.
• Recruit monsters, reshape the map, strengthen your economy, hero and army, and more through exploration rewards.
• Survive escalating Monster Tides containing hundreds of enemies drawn from dozens of enemy types.
• Shape each run through Founding Oaths and Rally Decrees.

The Citadel Must Hold is coming to PC (Steam Early Access) in 2027.