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By My Side

Wash up with empty hands. Chop wood, build a home, and survive harsh seasons and wolf packs. Take in a stray dog, earn its trust, and build a life together in the wilderness.

Release
July 17, 2026
102 days ago
Steam Reviews
Mostly Positive11 reviews72.7%
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Game contextLatest: IGF Team
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Updated: Jul 14, 2026Developer scaleThe operating scale of the game's developer.
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Updated: Jul 14, 2026Creative controlWho appears to retain creative control of the game.
Updated: Jul 14, 2026Release statusWhether and how the game has been released.

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About the Game

You wash up alone in the wilderness with nothing but your hands and what the land gives you. Chop wood, raise a shelter, and fight to stay alive as the seasons turn toward a merciless winter. Then a stray dog crosses your path. Feed it, earn its trust, and watch it grow into a loyal companion.

By My Side is an open-world survival-craft game about staying alive, building a home with your own hands, and the bond that grows between you and your dog.

Your Dog, Your Story: Find a stray and raise it from a pup. Each run brings a different breed with its own look and talent. Teach it tricks and put it to work guarding, hunting, or hauling a sled. It follows your commands, watches your back, and warns you when danger approaches.

Build & Power a Home: Grow from a first campfire to a fenced homestead with a glass greenhouse and an upper floor. Assemble foundations, walls, stairs, and roofs, then add your own power and water networks. Solar panels, batteries, pumps, heaters, sprinklers, smelters, and smart-relay automation keep the base working while you explore.

Craft & Refine: Over 90 recipes across the workbench, furnace, campfire, and powered machines. Gather raw materials and work through production chains: ore into iron into steel, fibre into cloth into cable. Make tools, equipment, and the machines that run your home.

Survive the Seasons: Stay warm, fed, and dry as spring, summer, and autumn give way to a demanding winter. Food spoils, so salt and preserve it and stock the larder before the cold. Droughts, animal migrations, wolf packs, and aurora-lit nights make every year unpredictable.

Live Off the Land: Till fields, grow crops, and keep them alive year-round in a heated greenhouse. Raise animals, trade with a wandering merchant, and automate the daily work so your homestead works for you.

Defend What's Yours: The wilderness fights back, and the pressure grows the longer you last. Wolves threaten from the early nights; harsher winters and pack attacks test you as you progress. Read the danger, fortify your home, and hold the line beside your dog.

Every Run Is Different: Start in a fresh scenario and choose from a dozen origins. Each has a real strength and weakness that shape how you survive. Climb the homestead ranks toward rewarding endgame goals.

Two Ways to Play: Survival offers a hardcore challenge with one life and permadeath. In Story, your home and world endure when you fall.

Arrive with nothing. Leave a legacy, with your dog by your side.

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