The world
One world. Any life.
Marsa is a coastal kingdom in an age of swords, guilds and a king, built so that it keeps living whether anyone is there or not. Everyone in it, player or townsperson, lives by the same rules and under the same law.
Nobody tells you which life.
Some come to rest and watch a life grow. Some come to rule a trade. Some come to take what others earned. The same open world holds all of them, and you can change your mind.
- inside the walls
A calm life
Fish, farm, bake, keep a house. Choose a quiet life and watch it grow.
- the other side
Gang, bandit, spy, assassin
Form a gang. Rob the road. Spy, poison, kill. The law answers, people remember, and a watched gate is a watched gate. Nobody will stop you choosing it.
- inside the walls
Trade and guilds
Keep a shop and set your own prices. Join a guild, post its quests or take them, deposit your savings and lend to a market that ran dry.
- the crown's side
Guard or knight
Keep the gate, watch for crime, ride for the king. The law is a job, and someone has to do it.
- inside the walls
A craft
Forge swords, serve food, weave, build houses and workshops. A skill grows as you use it, and some you only find by being taught.
- beyond the walls
Adventurer
Leave the cities for the country between them: dungeons, monsters, and what they guard. Skills you cannot see until you uncover them.
- a fact of the world
Magic, or none
Magic is real here, and it costs what it costs. Study it, or live a whole life without it.
- sea and road
Fisher, sailor, caravaner
Boats, nets and the weather. Caravans between the cities, with everything that waits on the road.
- everyone
People and the law
Friends, marriage, enemies and feuds, under a king and a law where crimes are punished and debts are remembered.
Beyond the walls
Outside the cities it is not safe.
Inside the walls there is law, a jail and a king. Outside there are bandits, monsters, the walking dead and creatures out of old stories, and a hundred kilometres of country where nobody is coming to help. The crossing between two cities is a journey of real hours, and what you carry is yours only as long as you can keep it.
Magic is a fact of the world, not a genre. It bends what is possible and it is paid for.
- 100km
- across, with dangerous country between the cities
- 5
- cities, each alive by the choices of the people in it
- 100s
- of skills you cannot see until you uncover them
Dying
Death is not the end. It is not free either.
Nobody is deleted in Marsa. But die, and you wake again in a ruthless place far from home, with a hard journey back that you have to survive. What you were carrying is where you fell, and whoever finds it first keeps it for a while.
Hurt
Wounds heal slowly, and they add up.
A wound heals by itself over time, a second wound adds to what is left, and a salve heals faster. A fight has no dice: the same two people in the same state meet the same way, every time.
Money
A real economy, with real consequences.
Money is moved in Marsa, never made. A market's prices follow what sold yesterday. A market that runs dry is lent coin by the savers' guild, and by the crown as the lender of last resort, and repays it from its sales. Wages rise where coin is short and fall where it is plentiful.
So famine, inflation, recession and monopoly can all happen, because nothing is scripted to stop them. A town that fishes too little goes hungry. A trader who corners the salt sets the price of salt. That is the point.
Fair
Nobody buys an advantage. No kits for sale that make you stronger, no extra subscription for benefits inside the game, and the same rules for the new arrival and the old hand. Everything you have in Marsa, you earned there, and so did everyone else.
A day in Marsa
From the morning market to the lanterns.
One harbour, one day. It goes on whether you are there or not.
Artwork made from Marsa's own characters, animals and buildings, set in motion by an AI video model. Marsa is in development; the game will look different.
What waits
Later ages are hidden inside this one.
Marsa starts with swords, guilds and a kingdom. It does not stay there. Other ages are already written into the world, and a city reaches the next one when its people's own skills, trade and knowledge cross a line that nobody announces. The materials in your hands change meaning when it happens. Nobody is told when.
Be there when the gates open
One email, on the day the gates open.
The gates open on Saturday 28 November 2026. 53 days to go. Leave your email and we write once, that day, and never for anything else.