GamesStrategyAra: History UntoldMicrosoft’s answer to Civilization looks, well, a lot like Civilization, but has twists like simultaneous turn resolutionWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesStrategyAra: History UntoldMicrosoft’s answer to Civilization looks, well, a lot like Civilization, but has twists like simultaneous turn resolutionWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
It’s definitely not just ‘Civ 5 but new,’ though, with the biggest difference being that Ara resolves each player’s turn simultaneously—both in singleplayer and multiplayer—with “generally speaking” little downtime, according to lead designer Michael Califf. That should distinguish Ara quite a bit from many grand strategy games, creating analysis problems and opportunities for bluffing that you don’t get in games that process turns one at a time.
Ara also gets granular about production in a way Civ doesn’t, with a “crafting” system that has players turning natural resources into goods like boots and weapons. “The crafting system in Ara encourages thoughtful advanced planning,” said design director Michelle Menard in today’s presentation. “It rewards players who can see the strategic outcome of all their collective decisions and not just the individual ones.”
There’s wildlife, too. Apparently, mountain lions were found to be too aggressive during testing—“I think we ended up in a good place with the overall threat level of mountain lions to a player’s citizenry,” joked Califf. I’ll be curious to see how much of a role ecological considerations play.
Ara: History Untold is scheduled to release on PC this fall. It’s got aSteam page, and will also be added to PC Game Pass. If you’re curious about its take on grand strategy, Oxide has been publishingdev diary videosthat go deeper on individual aspects of the game, includingcraftingandsimultaneous turn resolution.
Today’s Xbox Developer Direct also included ourbest look at Obsidian’s first-person RPG Avowed so far, and thereveal of the Indiana Jones gamefrom Bethesda and MachineGames.
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