
Early Access
Yes, it's still new to Early Access (launched Sep 24). Last updated today, with 28 updates so far.
Last checked Oct 22, 2026
Grow colonies of fluorescent cells that mutate, swarm, and devour each other in a petri dish arena. Propagate a unique biology of your own as you compete against rival labs in a detailed artificial life simulation.
The developer filed this on the Steam store page. It is not a guess by active.games.
Cell and rival-lab behavior is driven by small neural networks and neurosymbolic systems (vector-symbolic reasoning and associative memory) running in-game. These control behavior only and do not generate art, text, or other content. AI coding agents are used during development: writing code (including procedural shaders) to human-made designs and under human review; accelerating feature implementation; supporting codebase maintenance and bug fixes. All game design, art, music, and original English text are created by a human. Some minor text, such as tooltips, may be drafted by AI from human-written references but is human-reviewed and edited before release. No AI-generated art or text is produced at runtime. Machine translation was used to create the translations of the game. The translations will be reviewed by humans, but until then please report any translation issues. I am working on this solo, and as a result of accelerated development there will be many silly bugs in Early Access. There may also be some placeholder text that slips by unreviewed. If you find "slop" of any kind, whether text or bugs, please report it and it will be fixed before full release. Machine learning is cool :)
Oct 21, 2026 · Build
snapshot branch build 26107508
Latest build time Steam reports for the snapshot branch.
Oct 21, 2026 · Patch note
New Map: VZ2-261020 (opens in new tab)
New Map VZ2-261020 has virin and zymogen-II and is hotter than normal. Testing out some 4 direction symmetry. v0.4.9-46: Reworked: * The IDENTIFY STRAIN card draws the M, E, ENTER and ESC keys in its footer as key glyphs instead of words Fixed: * The right-hand HUD docks overlapping, or the top of the COMPOUNDS dock running off the screen, when they held ma…
Oct 21, 2026 · Build
Public branch build 26094701
Latest build time Steam reports for the public branch.
Oct 21, 2026 · Build
experimental branch build 26094701
Latest build time Steam reports for the experimental branch.
Oct 20, 2026 · Patch note
v0.4.9-40: Fixed: * Splicer gene values drawing over their bars, and the NAME YOUR STRAIN placeholder wrapping onto several lines. Values now sit beside their bar, and the name stays on one line * Lab STORAGE dose counts overprinting long compound names in a different text size, and CLEAR sitting far from its row. Names and counts now fit their row in one s…
Substrate: Emergence last shipped a build on the snapshot branch today (Oct 21, 2026).
It got about 6 updates per month so far. Substrate: Emergence entered Early Access less than three months ago, so it's too new to rate for update frequency.
No. Substrate: Emergence only launched in Early Access on Sep 24, and it was last updated today, with 28 updates so far.
Substrate: Emergence: 70 updates in the last 12 months, avg every 4 days. The chart shows the last 12 months, including months with zero patch notes. Counts are dated patch and update posts, not branch builds. The Early Access release on 2026-09-24 falls inside this window.
| Month | Updates |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 0 |
| December 2025 | 0 |
| January 2026 | 0 |
| February 2026 | 0 |
| March 2026 | 0 |
| April 2026 | 0 |
| May 2026 | 0 |
| June 2026 | 0 |
| July 2026 | 0 |
| August 2026 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 22 |
| October 2026 | 15 |