We got to here more from developer Oxide Games directly on Xbox’s Developer Direct 2024 showcase as they talk more about their upcoming game Ara: History Untold.
Ara is a historical 4X strategy game (though the developers insist on using the term “grand strategy” to describe their game rather than 4X) where you control a leader where you can “rule how you want to rule” as you forge your nation to be the most prestigious in the planet by any means necessary.
Here are some new tidbits of informations we learned from the Developer Direct segments:
- The “Living World” will show visual changes of the Earth as nations get developed. Land starts teeming with wildlife and eventually becomes a bustling metropolis full of buildings.
- Winning a game of Ara means earning Prestige. Points are awarded in various categories (Commerce, Culture, Government, Industry, Military, Religion, Science). Highest points wins. Sort of like in Humankind.
- You can build Mecha Warriors. Design doc shows a Gundam-style mecha as one of the options with notes saying “anime style ‘Hadouken’ or ‘Kamehameha’ for laser attacks”
- Crafting system where buildings can create specific cratable resources used for improvements or Triumphs (World Wonders).
- Not turn-based, everyone takes turns simultaneously. This should reduce downtime, and force players to react to the actions of competitors at every time.
- Leaders you can pick aren’t just military leaders or government heads. This leads to these historical figures being featured in Ara
- Sappho, Greek poet
- Cesare Beccaria, Italian legal philosopher
- Nicolas Copernicus, physician, mathematician, philosopher
- Confucius, Chinese philosopher
- Ara has been playtested by select players in the Insiders program. Feedback from playtesting has ironed out issues like cougars being too aggressive and constantly attacking settled land.
Ara: History Untold will be releasing in fall (Q4) 2024 on PC, and coming to PC Game Pass.