Mr. President: The American Presidency 2000-2020 will debut in early access on January 26, 2026, so that players can see what it’s like being the American president.
Based on a tabletop game, this $20 early access title built by Exia Labs and adapted from GMT Games tabletop version, is unique in that it’s not about elections or running a campaign.
The game is launching into early access on January 26, 2026, the first day of Steam’s Board Game Festival.
In this game, you’ve already won the election and must now govern. Likewise, most games in which you get to lead America focus on a narrow slice of that leadership.
Mr. President: The American Presidency 2000-2020 is a game about being POTUS. And it’s
unique. Most American politics games, both digital and tabletop, are about elections and
campaigning; in this game, you’ve already won the election and must now govern.
Likewise, most games in which you get to lead America focus on a narrow slice of that leadership. Not in Mr. President. You’ve got to take on the entire presidential portfolio: running the war on terror, dealing with domestic crises, managing your Cabinet, working with US allies and rivals, passing your domestic agenda through Congress, confirming Supreme Court justices if a seat comes open, and every other responsibility that comes with sitting in the Oval Office.
The game is an adaptation of the tabletop version, the result of a nine-year design and research process. It has a vast amount of content, ensuring tons of replayability — hundreds of crises and events, dozens of actions for the player to choose from, and subsystems capturing the whole range of presidential opportunities and challenges. Players can opt for the sandbox scenario, which puts them at the start of a four-year term that encompasses a general variety of trends and events of the early 21st century.
Or, if a player wants to see if he or she can do better than an actual president, there’s a scenario for each presidential term. Want to see if you can navigate the financial crisis, pass health care reform, and contain Iran better than President Obama did?
Do you think you can deal with 9/11 better than President Bush did, perhaps even also
achieving Bush’s objective of Social Security reform? Mr. President lets you take your shot.
The tabletop version is a monster game; one of the most common player comments about it is “I would love to buy and play this game, but I don’t have the table space” or “I can’t leave a game like this set up for days and days.” Another common comment is “I spend a lot of time finding the right tables to roll on and the right rules to apply.”
Exia’s adaptation will remove all of that player pain and present players with a tightened but entirely faithful Mr. President experience.
But we know there are pitfalls with translating a game like Mr. President to the PC screen. Part of what’s compelling about Mr. President, and other open-ended sandbox simulation style games, is that by reading the rules and pushing the counters, the player gains a deeper understanding of the choices the game offers and how to play towards and around them. A system that automates everything and simply presents the player with results fails in two ways: it denies the player a moment to imagine what’s happening, and it forgoes an opportunity to understand what impacted the chance of success. Exia has an experienced game dev team. It includes Ananda Gupta, one of the most experienced and successful game designers in both digital and tabletop spaces. We will not fall into these traps.
Like any game about politics and governing, Mr. President expresses a particular creative
vision. It portrays the American presidency as a great institution and America as a force for good in the world – but whose potential is strongest when people of different parties and views come together, and when America works well with its allies. Like any creative vision, people will disagree – but in today’s political atmosphere, many players may find Mr. President to be a breath of fresh air.
Mr. President will continue to receive substantial UI, feature, and content updates on a monthly basis for the next year or so. We would like to involve the community in the game’s development so that we can create the best presidential simulation in the market.
Mr. President will be in Early Access for approximately one year. During Mr. President’s development, the team plans to make the digital version have feature parity with the paper version (2nd edition) and include additional digital-only features. The full version will include 100 additional Crisis Cards which will be delivered in subsequent updates as we build upon the initial Early Access Build. Also any missing gameplay systems from the board game such as Scandals, Nuclear Missile Tracks, and the remaining Crisis Chits and table roll entries will be included in the full version.
The full version will also include several special scenarios based on modern presidencies as well as two additional difficulties (Easier, Harder) for the Sandbox scenario.
Additionally, the company plans to implement some special digital only features such as:
- allowing for the player to select an avatar portrait to represent themselves in the game.
- a detailed Legacy screen summarizing all events that took place in a player’s presidency.
- Steam Cloud Saves and Achievements
In early access, players are able to play through a significant part of a presidential term in the Sandbox scenario on Normal difficulty. This includes Actions (domestic, diplomatic, and military), Terror and Chaos, Wars and Civil Wars, UN Acts, joint and unilateral Ally Actions, Rogue States, Russia Acts, China Acts, Conflict Tracks, landmark legislation, the Nobel Prize, the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, Cabinet priorities, Summits, and more, said Jonathan Pan, CEO, Exia Labs, in a statement.
Mr. President may increase slightly in price after Early Access. Through the Steam community forums and GMT surveys and social media channels, the team will be gauging feedback on every update, and frequently polling the community for their reactions and suggestions as we continue to make the game more feature-rich and fun.
In November 2025, the new National Security Strategy made one thing clear: the future of Asia will be won through economic leadership, not just military might. Yet, while the U.S. government has spent decades perfecting military simulations, the country has neglected investments in simulating non-kinetic domains like economics, global trade, and so on.
Mr. President was designed to change that. It is a next-generation simulation that challenges players to master every instrument of national power—putting economics and diplomacy at the heart of the grand strategy.
The tea believes this niche represents a significant and underserved market within the gaming community. Furthermore, the company is currently in discussions with several U.S. government agencies to develop a specialized version of Mr. President, tailored to simulate real-world geopolitical scenarios for official training and analysis.