Early Start

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Build the foundations of your glorious Soviet Republic starting from the tumultuous 30s and lead it through a time of rapid industrialization and centralization. Face off against the limitations of the era, research technologies that revolutionized the world, and establish the roots of a nation that will stand for decades to come.

—Official Steam page description

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Early Start is the fourth available paid downloadable expansion for Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic release in May of 2025. It was released alongside Update 1.1.0.7.

Overview

The Early Start expansion allows the player to begin a game as early as the year 1930 – before the expansion, the earliest possible starting year for a game was 1960. Altogether, players can now choose between six different starting years: 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970 and 1980.

To complement the earlier starting dates, a variety of era-appropriate content was added to the game including older vehicles, buildings and infrastructure elements. Additionally, Early Start added steam-powered locomotives that require coal and water to refuel at Coaling stations.

Various standard technologies were locked behind new research options, some of which can only be unlocked from a certain year onward. Instead, the player must at first rely on older, less efficient or convenient early versions of most buildings.

As a result, Early Start changes the early game experience quite significantly and forces the player to work with suboptimal and relatively inefficient infrastructure, vehicle and building options. This encourages the player to plan around eventually demolishing and rebuilding entire industries, districts and infrastructure projects once modern variants are available.

Content

Buildings

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Vehicles

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Landscapes

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Reception

As of late July of 2025, the expansion is rated Mixed on Steam.

Most positive reviews praise the gameplay additions such as steam trains, the refined game progression and research tree, the aesthetics and the more unique early-game experience.

Most negative reviews mention a perceived lack of content and subpar attention to bugs and polish relative to its price. At release of the expansion, several types of vehicles did not have Early Start equivalents. Some buildings were reportedly bugged.

Since then, several free game updates have added significant amounts of additional content to the early eras.

Gallery

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