It must really suck for a studio to run out and put together a cool idea, form it into a game, agonize over an apt but succinct name that will immortalize it and spearhead all marketing efforts, settling finally for 'Humankind', only for Ubisoft to release some pretentious 'evolution' game called 'Ancestors: The Humankind Oddessey'. (No offence to the creators of 'Ancestors', I'm just not entirely sure why thier game needed a mile long subtitle.) It's a real shame because when I look at AMPLITUDE Studios I see a real earnest developer trying to make something special, something I don't quite understand yet, but something special nonetheless. They don't really have the name-recognition to go up against Ubisoft and most people have already attached the label 'Humankind' with Panache Digital's Ape-simulator.
In fact, it wasn't until the VGAs when I first discovered that the world was getting a Civilization successor, and I LOVE Civ. Don't get me wrong, I'm not good at Civ, but I positively adore it all the same. Perhaps it comes from that incredibly satisfying feeling you get once everything you've built begins working in flawless harmony and progress practically rushes you by; or maybe it's the moments when everything is falling apart, and you're forced to make tough sacrifices just to survive long enough to pull through; or maybe it's just that inevitable moment when you get sick of being stonewalled out of World Congress and start conducting Mech-wars on civilizations so underdeveloped that they only got airplanes last decade, happy in the knowledge that if any of the bigger civilizations get testy they'll find themselves unwilling guinea pigs for that Atomic Bomb I built all those decades back as a 'deterant'. (God I'm a psychopath, aren't I...) Whatever the allure of this genre, the consequence is that I'm positively enamoured with all 'civilisation builder' games and literally did a double take when I realized a new one had managed to pass me by until now.
But I use the past-tense appropriately because it is in my headlights now, and I fully intend to spend my time answering that one question that seemed to grip everyone during the VGA trailer. "What the heck is this game?" Humankind is an upcoming brand new 4X strategy game (With the term '4X' standing for: Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate; to denote the key gameplay loop of games from this genre) being put together by a studio made up of ex-Ubisoft Devs. (Okay, that's weird. Kinda makes it look like Ancestor's similar name might not be so 'coicendental' after all... I'm joking- just to be clear.) These are the guys behind 'Endless Space' as well, so they ain't no greenhorns to this genre, which should be promising to hear for anyone else with my particular bug. Humankind is a title that plans to take all that expertise that the studio has gathered through their work on space 4x games and use it on a terrestrial level that should, in theory, supplant the long standing kings of this genre like 'Anno' and 'Civilisation'.
The first thing to note about this game is while it may look like Civ, wear it's clothes, eat it's food and share it's bed, this game is, crucially, not Civ. The best manner in which I can illustrate this is through explaining the key feature of Humankind: How civilizations work- argh, damn these 4X games and their one-word titles. (This is going to get a little complicated) So in Civilization, (the game, not the concept.) players are asked to take on the identity of one 'real life' society (ancient or modern) and guide them through the ages from a band of wandering settlers into a nuke toting world superpower. (If you're me.) The slight problem with this, from a 'realism' standpoint, is that you'll be taking control of societies from all across the history of the world and starting them at square one, even though no modern society actually started from square one.
This is the problem that Humankind intends to fix by having players play, not as a society, but as an immortal ruler who just happens to shape this civilization through it's 6 ages. In gameplay, this means that the player will be initially asked to choose between a selection of period appropriate ancient civilizations and build them up before having the opportunity to pick a successor society through which to pass the torch. This mirrors how civilization evolves in our real world, with societies like Modern America having been birthed from England and borrowing aspects of Roman Culture who in turn gained their routes from Egyptian and ancient Greek cultures. This approach to telling a 4X story should appropriately represent the melting pot that is modern society and, on a more tactile note, will make competitive play much more unpredictable.
It is quite the dream to imagine a Civ like game wherein you craft a civilization of your own by picking it's ancestors, but AMPLITUDE are determined to realize this in a title that they are prematurely naming their Magum Opus. (Guess that's why they gave it a name as flat as 'Humankind'.) In gameplay, what little we've seen at least, we can observe this mechanic in action as we see modern civilizations that look to have taken design ques from the player's earlier acquaintances, as well as combat units that mirror those design elements. Of course, this means that balancing must be an absolute nightmare to figure out, but that's some of the fun of 4X games, you're not always on the same level playing field.
Of course, having watched the VGA trailer revealed precisely none of this, and I've had to build up my hype for this title all on my own, and I've seen several pundits who immediately waved this off as a Civ clone because of that trailer. I feel like this speaks to an inherent weakness on the behalf of their marketing, and that could get in the way of this titles popularity in the long run. Now, it's entirely possible that, given this studios history with 4X games, the audience who would flock to this game already know well about it. It's been doing the rounds for a while now and the strategy game community does have a reputation of being a tight-knit, in-the-loop bunch. But that leaves a whole lot of non die-hard strategy fans, like myself, who could completely miss out on what could be one of the most ambitious 4X games ever made. Or an impending flop of disastrous proportions. (Either way, it doesn't make sense for folk to just miss out.)
4X titles manage to confer that oh-so-sought-after power fantasy wish that I actually actively shun in other genres. Is it a shooter? Make it as hard as possible, I want to fight for my kills. It is a action adventure platformer? Turn off auto-checkpoints, I want every jump to make my heart leap into my throat. But when it comes to running a sprawling empire, I want to be that almighty dictator with lands so vast that the sun never sets on them. (And through the course of this blog, I think I've made it abundantly clear how that dream is one that should stay firmly in the videogame world.) 'Humankind' promises to feed on that dream and add an almost unprecedented flair of personality into it, and that just makes me excited about the future of this genre. Perhaps next there'll be a 4X game that follows a civilization straight from the birth of society into a vast stellar empire. (Kinda like Stellaris.) Of course balancing for that would be literally impossible and single games would last for actual months, but it still sounds cool in my head. Just as long as I still get to build my Metal Gear mechs. (Oh, space mechs! OH, Zone of Enders!) See, 'Humankind' already has me dreaming big, and what more can one ask of a game than that?
No comments:
Post a Comment