Posted in: Games, Indie Games, Video Games | Tagged: Media Circus, Papercoda Games
If you control the story you control the world in Media Circus, a newspaper narrative-strategy game aiming for release in 2027
Article Summary
- Media Circus is a narrative-strategy game where you control a newspaper in an animal world.
- Plan headlines, manage reporters, and decide what news or ads make your paper each issue.
- Choices shape Codavia, affecting elections, stories, and your newspaper’s reputation and fate.
- Face competition, sway public opinion, and explore multiple endings with high replay value.
Indie game developer and publisher Papercoda Games announced their latest game this week, as they showed off Media Circus to players. In an animal world, you run a newspaper that is trying to not just stay afloat, but conquer everything in the newspaper world with your own brand of sensational reporting and headlines. You’ll plan out every issue and run with it to see how well you do while also making sure you stay profitable to print the next issue. Enjoy the announcement trailer and info here as the game is being planned for a 2027 release on Steam, with consoles sometime in the future.

Media Circus
Launch your newspaper and sway the masses in a unique animal world! Direct reporters, plan stories, blow up Headlines for Impact, and throw in Ads for Profit. With every faction gunning for a piece of your front page, how far will you go to keep your paper in print — and yourself out of trouble? You have limited space in your newspaper. What will you print, what will you bury? Increase the size of news stories to attract more readers and sway their beliefs. Increase the size of Ads to make more money. Everything you print has a consequence and will change your world in myriad ways.
Manage and guide your reporters; choose how they spin each story! Your paper is a business, so keep an eye on your competition and your profit margins. You must climb those Sales Charts if you want to stay relevant! Welcome to Codavia, where every creature has an agenda, and your pen is a loaded weapon. Your choices shape the city, its elections, its stories, and your inbox full of threats, bribes, and lawsuits. What kind of newspaper will you create, and how will you change your world?
- Plan Your Newspaper: Choose what becomes News! – creative newspaper designing mechanics let you control what becomes news and how much it impacts your fictional world.
- Grow Your Influence: Your newspaper is a business. Attract readers, secure profits and beat your competition to grow your influence and bank balance.
- Manipulate a Funny Animal World: an innovative modular narrative system ensures the world reacts minutely to your editorial, narrative & financial choices and strategies, resulting in high replayability!
- Forge Your Identity: Will you be a money-spinning tabloid, serious investigative journal, a propaganda mouthpiece, or something in between? Your actions and impact will result in hundreds of unique stories and endings.
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About Gavin Sheehan
Gavin is the current Games Editor for Bleeding Cool. He has been a lifelong geek who can chat with you about comics, television, video games, and even pro wrestling. Follow @TheGavinSheehan on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, Bluesky, Threads, and Hive, for random pictures and musings.