A review copy was provided by Microsoft for this first look. Thankyou! (#GiftedbyXbox)
It was a big surprise, receiving access to Ara: History Untold. Not bad for the little old us! Ara is one of the big competitors hoping to bring something new to the 4X genre. Civilisation VII’s big reveal has brought more attention to this side of gaming, and I was interested to see how Ara: History Untold could bring to the table. It does things quite differently to the Civ franchise, and I like it that way.
Developed by Oxide Games, Ara: History Untold launched in late September to some mixed reception, and while some nice patches have improved my experience across the board, my first impressions of Ara are a little torn. For transparency reasons, this is my first impressions of the game. Due to time constraints and lingering health issues, it has left me with quite the backlog to catch up on. Despite my issues with some of the mechanics, I took to this game more than I did Humankind, and I feel that Oxide Games are on the right track. It still needs some significant work.
I found the visuals and performance reasonable, and even on a low-range laptop, the performance scaled better than I expected it to. I still experienced the occasional stuttering during intensive moments, especially when my empire began to expand. Unfortunately I had issues trying it on the Steam Deck, particularly with the small text size.
What surprised me was how much management went into supply chains. The economic side of Ara is more complex than what you’ll find in other 4X titles. I quite enjoy this focus as it’s something different, although Ara desperately needs some kind of automation. This is okay in the beginning of your playthrough, but I see too much micromanagement dragging down the experience. You are doing quite a lot while navigating the interface, and I felt bogged down. This is also a pretty expensive game at £50/60USD. While this is a AAA publisher in Microsoft, this is rather pricey for the genre, and probably a reason why more people haven’t picked the game up.
I do like how Ara: History Untold focuses on narrative. Old World was a wonderful 4X game with a similar design ethos as it felt like a great combination of Civilisation and Crusader Kings, and Ara tried something similar. You are free to change your civilization’s culture organically through gameplay, leading to some interesting alternate scenarios. While I see why people would be concerned about this reducing the impact of their civilization’s evolution, I like the experimental idea behind it, and when that is combined with the heavy focus on citizen needs, I enjoy the personal potential behind this.
Fortunately, the developers have been aware of the issues and some recent patches have improved some things. For example, there are new interface screens for managing your economy which helps understanding the early game better, and many bugs are being fixed. Oxide Games has a vision and a solid plan of where to take their game next, which is comforting.
In conclusion, I believe that I need to see some more finetuning before I’ll be tempted to play more of Ara: History Untold. The potential is there, and I appreciate that they are trying some new ideas. It just needs a little more work to pull me back in, but I greatly appreciate getting the chance to play this. For those on the fence, it is available to play on Game Pass if you have a subscription.
