Tentworks Interactive dropped the trailer for Becoming Pablo, a new real-time strategy (RTS) title inspired by Pablo Escobar’s drug empire. Coming soon on Steam, Becoming Pablo will challenge players to make smart decisions to build their drug cartel, forge alliances, and take down rivals to stay on top.
Becoming Pablo was born after Tentworks Interactive let go of its first game, City Block Builder, at the end of 2022 due to a number of challenges. In the first DevLog on the developer’s website, lead programmer Gary Chao said that while it was difficult to stop working on City Block Builder while it was still in early access, the Tentworks team was determined to recruit more people to work on Becoming Pablo as soon as possible. After much research on the Colombian drug trade of the 1970s to 1990s, Tentworks Interactive has managed to build an immersive RTS game based on historical events that fuses city building mechanics and resource management.
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How Becoming Pablo Lets Players Lead Their Own Drug Empire
Escobar is a well-known Colombian drug lord and narcoterrorist who earned the moniker, “The King of Cocaine,” after monopolizing the cocaine trade in the US in the 1980s until the early 1990s. So, the goal of Becoming Pablo is to lead a successful empire within the drug trade, and players also have to defend their turf from other cartels. When starting a new campaign, players will choose their preferred territory and leader. If they want to play as Escobar, they will have to choose the Medellin Cartel from the selection menu. They can also opt for Japan’s Yakuza, North Korea’s Kkangpae, and Nigeria’s Nasarawa Bandits, among many others. From there, players will build and manage their base, where they will oversee farming, production, and transporting products to customers.
Beyond its RTS mechanics, Becoming Pablo is a rich story-driven game where players can live through the dark history of drug cartels, as well as make decisions that could make or break their empire. Some of the key features are forging alliances with other territories and utilizing political manipulation to expand their cartel’s influence. They could also engage in turn-based battles to seize other regions and gain their rivals’ resources.
The RTS genre has evolved and influenced many games over the last 50 years, with popular franchises like Age of Empires and Starcraft redefining experiences with their distinct mechanics. Based on the information that Tentworks Interactive has shared, it seems like Becoming Pablo shows a lot of promise, especially how it will allow players to strategize running a drug business instead of just the usual battling and invasions that other RTS games have. As Tentworks Interactive CEO and founder Jay Basani noted, they wanted to focus on the “quiet decisions” that could affect an empire’s survival and collapse in Becoming Pablo, emphasizing a focus on the strategy behind amassing power over the display of violence. When done right, this creative approach could be its ticket to success, so it’s understandable why Tentworks Interactive is taking its time developing the game and getting feedback from playtests.
While waiting for Becoming Pablo‘s launch, gamers could brush up on their simulation and resource management skills with games like Schedule 1 and the newly-released Baking Bad, which is inspired by popular TV show Breaking Bad. Both crime games have caught people’s attention lately because of their humorous take on building a drug empire. The ever-reliable GTA franchise could also fill the void for the time being with its chaotic open-world adventure that explores various criminal activity and the cunning ways to escape the police.
