Between 2012 and 2017, a trifecta of games from an upstart French developer shook up the 4X hegemony.
The arrival of a new 4X game is a special event in the PC gaming calendar, like a solar eclipse passing across a world split up into tiny hexes. It’s rare enough to feel monumental, yet comforting in its cyclicality; a sporadic dose of complexity reminding us PC gamers that, despite our growing propensity for couch gaming, there are some pleasures that remain unique to us. One year there’ll be a Civ game, another year there’ll be a Gal Civ and then an Age of Wonders.
Even in the short time span between the games, Amplitude has made iterations to abide by de Waubert’s sandbox paradigm. It’s why between Endless Legend and Endless Space 2, the faction quests evolved from linear to choice-driven. At a story juncture for the tree-loving Unfallen faction, for example, you need to pick between showing the galaxy that the faction won’t be swayed from its pacifist principles, or—in a flourish of doublespeak—that it’s prepared to defend those principles with force.
So where an expansionist empire in Civilization may get a unique building with extra productivity and a couple of passive traits to help you spread your borders, an Endless game takes the idea to its extreme. “We’d be in a meeting with designers and say, ‘We need a faction that’s expansion-oriented—they need to keep growing and conquering,’” says Spock.
A similar approach has since been seen in the Total War: Warhammer series, from Creative Assembly. The fantasy premise has allowed it to let loose with systems that weren’t possible in the historical settings. In Warhammer II, Skaven cities only appear as ruins to other players, while High Elves can manipulate and spy on their opponents via diplomacy. De Waubert reveals that the two fellow Sega developers have been exchanging ideas, but stops short of claiming credit for Total War’s innovations.
Spock says that the goal of this “beautiful, streamlined interface is that the player could get anywhere in two, three clicks”, but that doesn’t capture the omniscient feel of managing your empire in Endless Space 2, where you can seamlessly zoom from a galaxy-wide view to a star system to a planet in a couple of seconds by scrolling. Press the spacebar on a planet or star system, and you ‘scan’ whatever is highlighted.
Citybuilding in Endless Legend borrows from its cosmic counterpart, where you’re confined to colonising existing planets and star systems. In Legend, the rule is that you can only build one city per region. “Having to handle 20 cities in the late game isn’t so much fun, and we didn’t want to bog players down with micromanagement,” de Waubert tells me.
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