Endless Space 2
This supplementary volume also lacks a point of termination
DEVELOPER AMPLITUDE STUDIOS
PUBLISHER SEGA
PRICE $ 39.99
AVAILABLE AT STEAM endless-space.com
The space-empire 4X turn-based strategy genre is, to my mind, one of the most prescriptive in gaming today. To the untrained eye, all 4X games appear the same - the galaxy map, the tech tree, the million billion buttons and icons, and the same basic progression. Start small and primitive, explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate.
From the time the genre appeared with Reach for the Stars in 1983, to maybe 2015, the pace of new 4X releases remained manageably steady. But for some reason, now we’re getting all the 4X games, all at once. The fine details are different but overall each of these games offers the same promise (create an empire and rule a galaxy), and demands the same sacrifice (thousands of hours of your time).
Titles include Master of Orion 3, Stellaris, Galactic Civilizations III and its expansion, and roughly one metric funkload of clones and Kickstarter wannabes.
So why would you choose Endless Space 2 over anything else? In a genre where every game is essentially the same, how does a big-budget AAA-by4X-standards title stand out?
ES2 is of course a second run for Amplitude that builds on its very solid Endless Space and Endless Legend successes. Endless Space showed us that 4X could be beautiful and have a lovely interface, and after a time - or a few times, anyway - Amplitude got around to actually finishing the game and making it more than a pretty face.
The big insult you can throw at a 4X space empire game is to call it “just another Master of Orion 2 clone”. So inasmuch as there is a spectrum or
races such as the Horatio, who consist of nothing but clones of a single eccentric hyper-billionaire
metric we can apply to these thing, “least like MOO2” might have to do.
ES2 does a lot to differentiate itself from other games, while maintaining a non-negotiable core set of mechanics.
The races are inventive. Rather than cat people and raccoon people and lizard people and tree people, there are races such as the Riftborn, who are fleeing a different dimension. Or the Horatio, who consist of nothing but clones of a single eccentric hyperbillionaire. Or the Sophons, who are super good at inventing stuff and making scientific discoveries... but not so good at NOT accidentally blowing up their moon.
Oh wait, there is a race of tree people actually, the Unfallen (geddit), who slowly grow vast vines between star systems.
Each race starts with a homeworld, a scout ship and, interestingly, a pre-built colony ship. A quick scout of the surrounding star systems will reveal the player is safe inside their own constellation, and probably won’t face large-scale invasion until later in the game when space travel tech that allows wormholes etc gets unlocked.
Scouting initial star systems and finding “anomalies” that provide various bonuses happens quickly. Finding a suitable colony world and sending the colony ship there comes next. Transforming the resulting “Outpost” into a fully-fledged Colony can take as long as 20 turns. And
finding a THIRD world to settle may not happen for some time, at least not until tech that allows settlement of different world-types is unlocked. Why does this matter? Because Score Victory is declared when reaching a turn limit (usually 127, but this can be tweaked).
Scout ships are equipped with probes that can be micromanaged into exploring beyond starlanes, new tech enables the discovery of new anomalies, and so in this way exploration remains part of the game almost until the end.
A recent trend in 4X is the inclusion of multiple population types - political factions, races, even species - on a single planet. ES2 takes this to the next level. Not only are certain bonuses awarded and sub-quests completed for increasing population diversity, successfully conquering another world simply turns those aliens into “your” people. Other games magically convert two billion Flangeoids into humans, but in ES2, they stay ugly, and grumpy... until you convince them life is now better under human rule.
There’s a downside to this, in that cosmopolitanism - which in the real world creates new and vibrant cultures - in the context of a game just tends to make the major factions seem all kinda the same.
There are individual unlocks on the tech tree/web for each race, but mostly everything is the same. There are even nonsensical things, such as the non-eating Riftborn having heroes who boost food production...
Diplomacy, as always, is a disappointment. Part of it is communication through the complex interface. Aliens will threaten your empire, and set ultimatums, and then you’ll forget about them until a dozen battlecruisers appear in your home system.
Other races, meanwhile, will belligerently declare war on you, because they have three ships now! Sure, you have like 22, but confidence is key, right?
Perhaps choosing a 4X game to sink your next statistically-significant chunk of your life into isn’t about gameplay gimmicks, though.
Perhaps it’s about acknowledging that these games have one job: to make you feel like you are directing the fate of an entire civilisation among the stars, while minimising the necessarily cumbersome and hypercomplex gameplay this requires.
Endless Space 2 does a good job of this. Sleek interface, some cool new concepts... but maybe it lacks that certain something, that vibe that makes it impossible not to have “just one more turn”.
The worst, most pathetic final comment a videogame reviewer can give on a review is “if you like this kind of game, then you’ll like this” and yet... that sentiment is just so APT for 4X.
Endless Space 2 won’t bring new fans to the genre. And it won’t Eclipse (boardgame reference) your memories of MOO2 or even Imperium Galactica.
But it will scratch that 4X itch. And look good while it’s doing it.