Endless Space 2
GRAND STRATEGY TAKES TO THE COSMOS. US$39.95 | PC | www.endless-space.com
ENDLESS SPACE 2 has joined a landscape rich with 4X space-strategy games. The rise of middleweight PC publishers has resulted in renewed support for, and interest in, genres that previously struggled. Amplitude’s strength remains its presentational flair. This is, by a considerable distance, the best-looking and sounding grand-strategy game around. Gorgeous hand-painted and animated 2D art illustrates everything from diplomacy to planetary management. The soundtrack is wonderful, too, from the orchestral arrangements that accompany a galactic view to the atmospheric synths that kick in on the discovery of a mysterious new world.
Diverse playable factions, now a staple of the Endless series, benefit from this excellent art as well as strong writing. While there is a default-feeling human faction, ES2 encourages you to think of each of its eight launch races as a different game.
The combat system sets it apart, too. When two opposing fleets meet, each commander invisibly picks a strategy and assigns their ships to flotillas. Strategies apply top-level bonuses (increased damage at long range, for example), as well as dictating the route taken by each of up to three flotillas. The strategies chosen dictate how ships in each flotilla will meet, where and when. This is the extent of your involvement as player, but you can subsequently watch the encounter play out in a well-implemented battle viewer. The system has a lot of strategic depth, particularly when combined with the ability to refit ships to amplify different strengths.
Your research, development and foreignpolicy decisions inform the popularity of political parties within your faction. The power of each of these waxes and wanes across regular elections, although exactly how this functions depends on your political model.
This is a complicated game. It’s easy to make incorrect decisions early on because of simple misreading. The game also launched with a large number of bugs and rough edges, but there’s still much to recommend here.