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4X games can be daunting, and the genre’s high barrier for entry is normally enough to deter many from even getting started. Ara: History Untold doesn’t subscribe to that notion, despite its gargantuan scope suggesting otherwise. I played Oxide’s latest at Gamescom and quickly settled into its rhythms.
Even within my tiny starting tile, Ara: History Untold‘s sprawling world already threatens to consume me. My session with the upcoming strategy game clocked in at around an hour, which let me get a handle on the basics. Ara will boast 30 playable leaders at launch, with around 50 turns per session, and 750 turns total to bring your nation to historic glory. Those are some big numbers, but I feel it gives you a sense of the scope and potential depth here.
Ara’s stakes are enjoyably personal early on, with my calls feeling more like family decisions than the demands of a cold leader. I feel a connection with the talented blacksmiths forging better tools for us, or the scouts risking their lives to survey what lies beyond the horizon. It’s me pulling the strings, of course, with Oxide’s delicate touch guiding me through each tab, description, and encounter.
Ara’s realism strikes the right balance between historical believability and fun. Even the map looks and feels more tangible than your average 4X. When I’m zoomed out, for example, my small, ramshackle military is depicted in a stylish art card rather than being blown up into a hulking squadron of tiny 3D warriors.
Every step towards expansion is about the finer details. Naturally, I need my next area to aid my specific goals, whether they be building military might or expanding my crops. I want to enrich my government and cultivate scientific progress, but I also want to dish out a high quality of life to my people, which is where pursuits like wine-making come in. This could explain why I didn’t make much of an impression on the AI-controller rival leader during my session.
After fighting off wild animals, getting into a minor scuffle, and building the slickest farm you’ve ever seen, I stumble upon the nation of Berlin. They’re not interested in my dazzling gifts, but neither are they ready to enter open war. It was a stalemate that I was happy to move on with. That was just act one.
Ara: History Untold uses a three-act structure to evaluate your ranking among the other nations, detailing your strengths and weaknesses in a post-chapter scoreboard. It might look disheartening at first to see that I’m falling behind the competition culturally, but the game never makes me feel like I’ve made the wrong choice.
That said, failing to move with the times will ensure your downfall – but that’s okay. Oxide wants you to experiment and push the envelope of what’s possible with a nation. I found myself drawn deeper and deeper into caring about the structures taking shape on my land, and those erecting them to foster that special spark for prosperous living.
Ara: History Untold surprised me. I was worried it’d be too dense and hard to parse, especially during a short preview, but instead I was welcomed with open arms into what is one of the most approachable 4X games to date. You can take it for a spin yourself when it launches on PC on September 24.
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