The Endless series, for me personally, has always been quite a peculiar one where I enjoyed the Space side of politicking and exploration/concurring rather than their grand strategy game of becoming the ruler via medieval bureaucracy (which Space 2 does have but not that intensive).
Still, after playing more 4X games from their developer, Amplitude, like the pretty underrated Humankind, and more of their other contemporary rivals recently, I went to the latest demo of their upcoming game, Endless Legend 2, with a curious outlook.
This will be the playable demo that you folks will be playing later on. Still, my experience of playing EL2 is quite fascinating. By that, I mean I keep getting my hero doing a good “Edge of Tomorrow” bit by being defeated over and over again.
Against The Tide, Or With It
I’ll be first to admit that I am not that good in the Endless series even after many offline hours in Space 2, with too many bad calls in strategy and ironically, endless bouts in battles that sometimes just contribute to the losses count, even on easy. And to say that I had an easier time in Legend 2 isn’t the truth. In fact, I actually think it’s more fun to be trial and error into understanding the game this way.
After picking the Faction (either the Kin of Sheredyn or the Aspects in this demo version), you are given a hero one army, and the entire generated world for you to explore, find resources, and set a city to establish your first city. And then the game will sometimes guide you with what to do, be it via meeting smaller village factions that you can either work with or just outright hostile takeover that may or may not be in your favor. Though, you could win over them, via a quest given to you in a dialogue between you and the factions, all part of the politicking where you can even have them under your wings after.
One of the new features for Legend 2 comes into play in the form of Tidefall, where a monsoon reigns upon the lands and if you play your choices right, you might survive it with more land to conquer, and maybe lead players closer to their AI rival of choice, since the game might have embanks the land from the island starting point, and now you might see their scouts roaming too.
It’s quite an engaging way to keep players on their toes as each monsoon season (by the looks of this demo) could lead to more hectic encounters later as the game progresses and how relationships are at, during the later “Years” as the game technology screen puts it.
The Combat portion is mostly similar if you have played any of the Endless series beforehand (bar the Roguelite, of course) but I do like how you would see the percentage of what you could get if you went head-to-head with someone, no matter if it’s an auto-battle or you doing the maneuvering yourself. Because if there’s a chance you could defy the odds, you might as well try, no?
So far, this demo does paint a picture that some of the battles can be hard fought, and strategizing the right way could turn the tide in your favor. Besides, what isn’t a 4X strategy game without some sacrifices along the way? It’s either going high and wide, or side-to-side.
Final Thoughts
Endless Legend 2 is, from my view, the perfect sequel to its 2014 predecessor so far, with its rich lore still deep with its playable factions, having an interesting way to expand the maps, and quite an intricate system that’s intimidating at first, but you’ll get the hang of it.
It is build on “Endless” possibilities, pun intended.
Played on PC, Early Access Demo was provided by the developer.