real in-game footage
Broadband Architect

Dig up Britain. Sell broadband. Survive the evening peak.

Britain's broadband is a mess, and you're the small company that says it can do better. Trench real UK streets, wire real homes to fibre, and size your network against the 8pm evening peak — when the whole town logs on at once.

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Coming soon to Early Access · November 2026 · Windows + Steam Deck · Demo at Steam Next Fest, 19–26 October
Trailer

A minute of roadworks

Every shot is the real game running. Real streets dug, a town wired, an evening peak that goes red, and the rest of the country waiting.

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The game

You are an altnet

Britain's telephone company had fifty years to put the cables in and has still not done it. You have a van, an overdraft, and a licence to dig.

Broadband Architect is a management sim about the unglamorous machinery of getting fibre into people's houses: trenching the streets of real British towns, arguing with landowners, boring under rivers, and sizing the network against the one moment that matters — the evening peak, when the whole town logs on at once and your backhaul either holds or doesn't.

Dig up real Britain — a trench lights itself along Bramble Chase in Bishops Cleeve, beside a ground-cost ladder from £7 to £44 a metre

Real towns from real map data — actual streets, actual buildings, actual premises counts. Route the duct street by street: tarmac costs more than verge, the A-road crossing costs more than both, and a wood is a shape on the board you go round or pay for. Every home that comes on net is a home you physically reached.

Survive the evening peak — one day on the backhaul graph; the line goes red after 8pm, satisfaction falls, three customers churn

Demand has a shape. At 8 pm the town logs on, and a link that looked comfortable all afternoon goes red. Congestion makes unhappy customers; unhappy customers churn; churn kills small ISPs. Buy capacity too early and you are bankrupt. Too late and you are bankrupt with a bad reputation.

Cheltenham at 20:50, the evening peak — the network overloaded, the backhaul link at 104 per cent
Cheltenham at 20:50, the evening peak. Every lit street is a duct you dug, and the backhaul link is at 104 per cent.
Run the company — the country board, the ledger strip, a rival's pin on Cheltenham

Raise funding, service the debt, make payroll. Crews, installers, and the dispatcher who keeps them moving. Chase vouchers, take tenders, and watch a rival quietly overbuild the estate you were saving for next quarter. Grow from one town to a national footprint and outlast every other challenger.

Set in 2012 — the era marker runs from 2012 to 2020 along the rail

What counts as a fast connection in 2012 is an embarrassment by 2020, and the kit you bought to win the first town will not win the last one.

A roadworks sign reading Road Ahead Closed, fibre installation until 2031 (approx.), beside the Cleeve Courier's headlines

Hi-vis, tea, rain, roadworks signs, and a proud little company doing a heroic mundane thing.

In development

Work in progress, playtesting now

Everything here is the real game on a real build. Click any shot for the full-size frame.

Cheltenham at 20:50, the evening peak: network overloaded, the backhaul link at 104 per cent Street level in Cheltenham — crews trenching, the next street priced on hover The whole of Cheltenham built out and lit — 211 cabinets, 15,987 subscribers The country map — six Gloucestershire towns joined to the Cheltenham datacentre The Development Frame — milestones earn sign-offs that authorise new kit The books — the week's run-rate, the passbook, runway and borrowing

Shot on the demo-beta build, September 2026, in the game's dark and light themes.

Your town

Which town should we dig up next?

Every map in the game is a real place. Tell us where you live and we'll count the votes when we pick the next towns to build. Occasional development news, first word when the demo and playtest places open, nothing else.

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