Midwest 90: Rapid City Heads to G-STAR 2026 Ahead of Steam Early Access

Midwest 90: Rapid City, the upcoming monster-filled diner management and survival game from Hidden Chest Studios, has been selected for Unity's Indie Showcase at G-STAR 2026. The game is one of 30 indie projects chosen for the event, which will be held in Busan, South Korea, and its appearance comes shortly before its planned Steam Early Access debut on November 10, 2026.

Published by Rising Tide, Midwest 90: Rapid City takes players to a broken version of Rapid City, South Dakota, in the year 2034. Society has been battered by what the game calls the New Great Depression, leaving the town economically devastated and overrun by monsters. Rather than simply fighting to escape the chaos, players are expected to keep a roadside diner alive in the middle of it. That means monsters are not only a danger beyond the restaurant doors; they are also fundamental to the diner's supply chain.

It is a deliberately strange premise, combining the familiar pressure of restaurant operation games with a harsher post-collapse setting. The kitchen is a workplace, a shelter, and a front line. Every decision appears to be framed by the uncomfortable reality that the creatures outside may become tomorrow's special, provided the diner survives long enough to prepare them.

A monster diner in a ruined Rapid City

Midwest 90: Rapid City is built around the challenge of running a roadside establishment when conventional commerce has ceased to function. The setting's New Great Depression has hollowed out the town, while monsters roaming the region turn basic errands and food sourcing into dangerous undertakings. The game's central hook is that the player must make a business out of that danger.

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At its core, the experience blends food preparation, resource management, staff decisions, and defensive survival. Players will use monster ingredients to create recipes and daily specials, adding a culinary layer to a setting that otherwise sounds closer to a creature-infested survival game. The specifics of each creature and recipe have not been fully detailed, but the Early Access feature list makes clear that monster cooking will be a major component from the beginning.

Food will have more than a simple sell-or-serve role. Dishes can carry traits, while a material or substance called Missourite will introduce side effects. The developers have warned that those effects vary, suggesting players may need to weigh short-term value against potentially unpredictable outcomes. That design direction fits the game's broader tone: in this version of the Midwest, practical choices are likely to come with complications.

The diner will not be managed by one person alone. Players can hire a crew to help keep the operation running, though the game's feature list also makes an unusual point of noting that slapping is optional. That detail suggests Midwest 90: Rapid City is aiming for a darkly comic, offbeat tone amid its economic-collapse and monster-survival themes, rather than presenting its world as unrelentingly grim.

For another perspective on this story, read Midwest 90: Rapid City Joins Unity's G-STAR 2026 Indie Showcase Ahead of Steam Early Access.

Early Access begins November 10

Midwest 90: Rapid City is scheduled to enter Early Access on Steam on November 10, 2026. The initial version is expected to include an Endless Mode alongside a narrative opening consisting of a Prologue and Chapter 1. This structure should give players both a repeatable mode focused on sustaining the diner and a more guided introduction to the setting, its characters, and its escalating threats.

Day-one Early Access content is planned to include:

• Endless Mode
• A Prologue and Chapter 1
• Monster recipes and daily specials
• Dish traits and Missourite-related side effects
• The ability to hire diner crew members
• Defensive tools including bear traps and barricades
• A shotgun intended for emergencies

Defense appears to be more than a background concern. Bear traps and barricades will be available at prices ranging from $10 to $150, creating another management consideration for players attempting to balance protection against the diner's finances. A cheap defensive measure may not provide enough coverage, while heavier investment in security could leave fewer resources for staffing, supplies, or other parts of the operation.

The shotgun, meanwhile, is described as an emergency option. That wording implies the game does not intend to become a pure shooter, even though direct combat is part of the setup. The more interesting tension may come from determining when a threat can be contained through preparation and when an immediate, costly response is unavoidable. A diner owner who spends every night firing a weapon at the door is unlikely to be running an efficient restaurant.

For a game placing food, money, defenses, and survival in the same loop, the practical appeal will depend on how those systems influence one another. If a particular monster ingredient creates a profitable special but requires a dangerous hunt, or if an experimental dish causes disruptive side effects, then the player's restaurant decisions can become meaningful survival decisions as well. The Early Access build will be the first opportunity to see how deeply those ideas connect in play.

Content roadmap points to a March 2027 launch

Hidden Chest Studios and Rising Tide have also laid out a preliminary path beyond the Steam Early Access opening. A currently unspecified surprise update is planned for December 31, 2026. The next major story addition, Chapter 2, is scheduled to arrive as a free update on January 28, 2027.

The team is targeting a full release in March 2027. Players who enter through Early Access are expected to receive that full release at no additional charge. As with any roadmap tied to an in-development game, plans can change, but the schedule provides a relatively near-term outline for the project's remaining updates after the November launch.

The use of Early Access is particularly suitable for a management-driven game with systemic interactions. Players can test the balance between the diner's revenue needs and its escalating security problems, while the development team can observe how people approach recipes, crew management, barricade spending, traps, and the game's stranger ingredient effects. Endless Mode may be especially useful in this regard, since it can reveal whether the diner loop remains engaging over extended runs beyond the story's earliest chapters.

Unity showcase presence at G-STAR

The game's G-STAR selection places Midwest 90: Rapid City in Unity's Indie Showcase, a curated group of 30 games set to appear during the 2026 event. Hidden Chest Studios and Rising Tide plan to bring a small version of the game's diner to the Unity Zone at BEXCO Exhibition Center 2, also known as BTC Hall, in Busan.

The presentation will run from November 19 through November 22, with hours listed as 10:00 to 18:00 each day. The showcase follows the Steam Early Access launch by just over a week, giving visitors a chance to encounter the game's concept in a physical booth environment after its initial public release on PC.

A diner-themed installation is a fitting choice for a project whose identity depends so much on place. Midwest 90: Rapid City is not merely using monsters as enemies or ingredients; it is framing the player's entire role around maintaining a recognizable roadside business under bizarre and hostile conditions. Recreating a small diner at the event could help communicate that unusual intersection of regional Americana, survival pressure, and culinary experimentation.

There is also an intriguing contrast in the game's framing. Rapid City in 2034 has been ravaged by economic collapse, but the player is still expected to participate in the stubbornly ordinary work of keeping a small business open. Customers need feeding, staff need managing, equipment needs buying, and the doors need defending. The difference is that normal supply chains have been replaced by monster hunting and whatever strange properties come with the ingredients.

An unusual survival-management prospect for PC

With its Early Access launch approaching, Midwest 90: Rapid City stands out less for a single genre label than for the collision of its ideas. It has the ingredients of a management game, an action-survival game, a cooking game, and a dark comedy set in a fictionalized American crisis. The final balance between those elements will determine whether its diner becomes a compelling workplace simulation or simply a chaotic setting for monster encounters.

For now, the confirmed plan is clear: Midwest 90: Rapid City will arrive in Steam Early Access on November 10, 2026, featuring its prologue, first chapter, Endless Mode, recipes, crew systems, defensive equipment, and emergency firepower. It will then appear at G-STAR 2026 in Busan from November 19 to 22, followed by a planned December update, Chapter 2 in January, and a targeted full release in March 2027.

Players looking for a survival game with a more unusual day job may want to keep an eye on this one. In Midwest 90: Rapid City, the question is not only whether the monsters can be stopped. It is whether they can be turned into dinner before they tear the diner apart.