Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Developer: Oxide Games
Medium: Digital
Players: Multi
Online: Yes
ESRB: E10+
When it comes to 4X strategy games, few are as well known as the long-running Civilization series. However, developer Oxide Games is hoping to change that with their newest effort, Ara: History Untold, launching this week on Windows and Steam, and available day one on PC Game Pass. With a team that has had some experience working on the Civilization series, it’s expected that you’ll see some similarities between the two. However, Ara: History Untold is definitely attempting to create some new space in the 4X strategy genre, and overall I’ve really enjoyed my time with it. It certainly has the whole “just one more turn!” thing going for it that most Civ games have, and once you get started you’ll likely have a pretty tough time putting it down.
If the whole 4X grand strategy genre is new to you, here’s what you can expect from Ara: History Untold. At the onset of the game you’ll select from one of thirty available leaders. These consist of notable figures from history, including a number of which I wasn’t all that familiar with going in. There’s some pretty good representation across all sorts of cultures, which is always nice to see, and there’s just enough variety in their various skills to make it worth bouncing around from leader to leader on each subsequent playthrough.
Once you’ve selected your leader, you’ll be introduced to te map for your session. Games like Ara are meant to be replayed over and over again, so you can opt to either let the game generate a map for you, or you can choose from a number of pre-created maps that may cause the game to be a bit more difficult than the randomly created ones. If you’re already a pro at games like Ara, you’ll also have a number of difficulty options, so if you find the default normal difficult a bit too easy, you can ratchet it up a couple notches for a real challenge.
Once the game begins, you’ll start by creating your first city, which introduces you immediately to one of the newer things Ara is making use of, which is abandoning the hex based system popularized by the Civilization series. Instead your cities will consist of a number of regions, which can have additional bonuses for various harvesters to make use of. There regions will have a number of spots in order to build structures, like factories, barracks, palaces, and so on. You’ll also want to pay attention to what resources are available in each region, so you can properly plan ahead on what you need to build. The lack of a hex grid factors in with your various units as well, but you’ll notice that when you move a unit they still sort of slide across the map from one region to the next, so there’s still sort of a boardgame like approach to the way the map works that’s not too dissimilar to other 4X strategy games.
Another way that Ara: History Untold attempts to deviate from the Civilization series is by making use of simultaneous turns for all players on map. So instead of taking your moves, then the next nation taking theirs, you’re essentially performing all your actions at once. The game will still prompt you on what actions are available to take, so you’ll still be clicking through a “next” option in order to advance the game, but this system does speed up the game quite a bit in comparison to others in the genre. It’s a nice change of pace, which allows for a quicker game of empire building than you’d typically see. Not to say that rounds are short, the core game is broken up into three acts that consist of hundreds upon hundreds of turns altogether, but it does make idle time virtually non-existent.
In addition to the single-player experience, you can also play online, and Ara: History Untold supports up to 36 players. You can join games in progress or start your own, and there’s a whole host of options to help you control how an online game plays out. You can set AFK rules, timers for turns, set-up private lobbies, choose from different map types, how many AI controlled opponents there are, and allow players to go AFK during a game and have the AI take over for them temporarily. It’s a solid online system, and while I didn’t get much opportunity to play online prior to release, I’m looking forward to jumping in more later this week.
I absolutely enjoyed my time with Ara: History Untold, and I think anyone that’s enjoyed a round or two of the Civilization series will feel right at home with this. It also has a solid tutorial to help on-board new players, so even if you’ve never touched a 4X game before, I think you’ll find that Ara is friendly towards new players too. There’s a ton of different ways to build out your empires, and the use of a Prestige system as an option to victory, wherein you gain points for various actions taken, is a solid way of deciding a winner even if you have multiple nations still standing at the end of a game. Definitely check Ara: History Untold out when it launches this week, you won’t be disappointed.
Note: Xbox Game Studios provided us with an Ara: History Untold PC code for review purposes.
