{"rewrite":{"id":"r_d93ea1c2f9e42588935c4a5d","clusterId":"c_e32668a24932b81a65120b4b","slug":"walls-were-built-to-fall-hits-13-000-steam-wishlists-before-2027-launch","model":"deepseek-v4-1-flash","headline":"Walls Were Built to Fall Hits 13,000 Steam Wishlists Before 2027 Launch","summary":"Zoomy Cat Games published the Steam store page for Walls Were Built to Fall on September 10. By September 23, the defense roguelite FPS had passed 13,000 wishlists. The game puts the player in the role of an apprentice mage who must protect a magic spring from a pixel-art horde that can reach one million enemies at once. Players fight from atop a wall in a canyon, or descend to the ground, using rapid-fire, explosive, and ice-spike magic. Roguelite and incremental upgrades let them build walls, lay traps, and hire mages and archers between attempts. A prototype video posted about a month before the store page went live drew around 350,000 views and 8,500 likes, before the project had a title. The developer has said a small-scale playtest is planned for one or two months out, and the game is scheduled for release on PC via Steam in the second quarter of 2027.","whyItMatters":"A prototype clip and a store page carried the project to five figures of wishlists before any playtest, which puts the developer's small-scale test and optimization work on a compressed timetable against a 2027 release window.","webCardHtml":"\u003cp\u003eThe store page lists modest minimum specs for a game built around a million simultaneous enemies: Windows 10 64-bit, an Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600, 8 GB RAM, and a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or AMD RX 580, with 2 GB of storage. In the developer\u0026#39;s own tests, an RTX 3070 had considerable headroom.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eZoomy Cat Games got there by moving the horde off the CPU. The enemies are sprites rather than 3D models, which is lighter to render, and the army\u0026#39;s physics run as a semi-fluid simulation with adjustments such as enemies climbing over one another. Most of that processing stays on the GPU, with only the representation passed to the CPU. An earlier attempt in Godot as a top-down tower defense with 5 million enemies did not go well, because driving that many enemies through nodes overloaded the CPU.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe project began after the developer was influenced by the incremental tower defense game \u0026#39;Commander, It\u0026#39;s an Orc Horde!\u0026#39;, released in July, and the pivot to first-person came from recalling the battle at Helm\u0026#39;s Deep in \u0026#34;The Lord of the Rings.\u0026#34;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIndie Game Joe and other well-known influencers introduced the game in the two weeks after the page went live. The store page currently does not support Japanese. On beginner difficulty, 200,000 enemies come at once.\u003c/p\u003e","blueskyPost":"Walls Were Built to Fall reached 13,000 wishlists before it had a title's worth of marketing: the prototype video drew 350,000 views and 8,500 likes, so the wishlist number is that video converting late.","twitterPost":"Walls Were Built to Fall hit 13,000 wishlists on a prototype video's momentum, not a titled reveal. Zoomy Cat Games rode the spike into the store page.","threadsPost":"Walls Were Built to Fall passed 13,000 wishlists 13 days after Zoomy Cat Games opened the Steam page. The prototype video, posted about a month earlier with around 350,000 views and 8,500 likes, did the marketing work before the game had a name.","newsletterBlurb":"Zoomy Cat Games opened the Steam page for Walls Were Built to Fall on September 10 and crossed 13,000 wishlists two weeks later. The defense roguelite FPS pits one apprentice mage against up to a million pixel-art enemies. A small-scale playtest is planned for one or two months out, with release set for the second quarter of 2027 on PC.","attributionJson":"[{\"source\":\"Automaton\",\"url\":\"https://automaton-media.com/articles/newsjp/20260925-469931/\",\"title\":\"\\\"1 Million Enemies\\\" Magic Defense Roguelike 'Walls Were Built to Fall' Quickly Draws Major Attention. A Tremendous Battle of \\\"Overwhelming Each Other With Sheer Numbers\\\" Against an Overflowing Horde\"},{\"source\":\"Game Spark\",\"url\":\"http://www.gamespark.jp/article/2026/09/25/172728.html\",\"title\":\"Defense Roguelite FPS 'Walls Were Built to Fall,' Attacked by Armies of Up to 1 Million, Surpasses 13,000 Wishlists\"}]","lintFlagsJson":null,"lintHits":0,"costUsd":0,"inputTokens":12326,"outputTokens":1353,"status":"published","repairAttempts":0,"nextRepairAt":null,"factsAttemptedAt":1791064762,"createdAt":"2026-10-03T21:56:01.000Z","publishedAt":"2026-10-03T21:58:20.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-03T21:58:20.000Z"},"cluster":{"id":"c_e32668a24932b81a65120b4b","canonicalTitle":"最大100万の軍勢が襲う防衛ローグライトFPS『Walls Were Built to Fall』ウィッシュリスト1.3万越え達成","representativeArticleId":"a_aa1f0cd8c49f9bb9821d7177","sourceCount":2,"writtenSourceCount":2,"writeAttempts":0,"isSolo":false,"entitiesJson":"{\"anime_titles\":[],\"manga_titles\":[],\"work_titles\":[\"Walls Were Built to Fall\"],\"studios\":[\"Zoomy Cat Games\"],\"people\":[],\"type\":\"news\",\"domain\":\"games\",\"is_roundup\":false}","contentType":"news","status":"published","firstSeenAt":"2026-09-24T15:30:03.000Z","lastSeenAt":"2026-09-25T04:19:03.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-03T21:58:20.000Z"},"attribution":[{"source":"Automaton","url":"https://automaton-media.com/articles/newsjp/20260925-469931/","title":"“敵100万体”魔法防衛ローグライク『Walls Were Built to Fall』たちまち大注目される。溢れんばかりの大群と「物量押し付け合い」壮絶バトル"},{"source":"Game Spark","url":"http://www.gamespark.jp/article/2026/09/25/172728.html","title":"最大100万の軍勢が襲う防衛ローグライトFPS『Walls Were Built to Fall』ウィッシュリスト1.3万越え達成"}],"entities":{"anime_titles":[],"manga_titles":[],"work_titles":["Walls Were Built to Fall"],"studios":["Zoomy Cat Games"],"people":[],"type":"news","domain":"games","is_roundup":false},"keyFacts":["Zoomy Cat Games published the Steam store page for Walls Were Built to Fall on September 10, 2026.","Walls Were Built to Fall passed 13,000 Steam wishlists by September 23, 2026, about two weeks after the store page went live.","Walls Were Built to Fall is scheduled for release on PC via Steam in the second quarter of 2027.","A prototype video for Walls Were Built to Fall drew about 350,000 views and 8,500 likes on Instagram before the game had a title.","On beginner difficulty, Walls Were Built to Fall sends 200,000 enemies at the player rather than the full one million."]}