Ara: History Untold

The history of the world is difficult to recreate in an easily digestible way. Ara: History Untold attempts to do just that. It wants to be one of the crowd of impressive turn-based strategy games, like Humankind, Old World, and Civilisation, and the big question is whether it succeeds. Because we have no shortage of competent historical strategy games in this genre anymore and that's why I'm quite pleased that this tries to do some new things. It starts off well with beautiful shorelines and a living world where you can see animals moving across the areas on the map and the world looks really striking. It reminds me of how Civilisation V tried to create a more realistic world.

The main difference between Ara and others in its genre is the way the world looks. There are no squares or hexagons, but pieces of the world are formed around nature. These can be rivers, lakes or mountains, and they can have different looks and sizes, which feels much more natural and inviting than hexagons do. It's hard to underestimate how different the game looks thanks to this. Each area can also be divided into smaller areas where buildings are constructed, if you own the area. It's a bit reminiscent of the districts in Civilisation VI, as with these buildings you can then produce various goods such as tools, units, and food.

The production of individual tools, food items and much more is what makes the title stand out. With the help of these, you can create bonuses in production chains and exchange the goods with alien powers. This is more reminiscent of Anno and The Settlers than anything else. Using tools or food to increase production internally brings its own bonuses, but there are also benefits if you choose to sell the goods, so it becomes a balancing act between how much you produce and what you do with the products. Each build also costs resources of various kinds, which involves a completely different mindset than in competing titles.

In Ara: History Untold, you also have to make sure your inhabitants are happy. The concept is called quality of life in the game and is divided into different categories. They need food, happiness, motivations, and research to be successful. By fulfilling the requirements, you get bonuses and the people become happier in turn, allowing them to also become more productive so you can do things faster. One of the most important elements of the title is to build a civilisation for the people and not just for yourself. Your kingdom can be torn apart and face great difficulties if you fail to do this. Ensuring the well-being of your citizens is just as important as building a military and conducting diplomacy with other nations in the game world.

Researching technologies, conducting diplomacy and trading are similar to other things in the genre. It's reassuring that so much of the core experience is familiar, while also introducing some unique elements, as even less significant features, such as putting together formations before sending your troops into battle, are a little different than in Civilisation VI, for example. This is something I think is positive, as depending on the era and bonuses, you can cobble together different soldier types into smaller armies. The game needs to stand out from the crowd without becoming a clone of something before, so despite the similarities in gameplay, there are interesting elements that give it character. One example of this is the choices you get to make in various text-based events.

The single most interesting feature for me was the dilemmas. These can affect relationships with neighbours or cost you resources. The way it works is that a short story is read out and you have to make a choice. I appreciate the clarity that each choice shows what you can gain and lose. It's smooth and the user interface helps make it easier for you no matter what you do. I also found that the encyclopaedia complemented the information the user interface offered in a good way, as it is comprehensive but was appreciated when I did not understand certain game systems.

By the time you get to the Iron Age, you've probably already built a couple of cities with roads and a flourishing trade system between them. That's when I think the foundation you laid in the first age starts to show. The resources you've created and other things you've built, gradually upgrade over time and give each city a pretty distinctive look. What you don't upgrade also contributes to how they look, and if you zoom in on your buildings, you can see the inhabitants walking around and doing things in the city. They reveal what the people think of you and how the residents feel, just like with Old World, as here Oxide Games wants to get us closer to the residents than in other historical 4X alternatives.

Thanks to the focus on the small and the big, there is a depth to this title and depending on the difficulty level, you're reminded of this pretty quickly. The higher settings were brutal, while in the easier ones you could get away with a few too many things. The difficulty options determine how many bonuses you or the computer opponents get and how aggressive they are. While I had hoped that the computer would play a little differently and maybe be smarter, that's not the case, but you do have to be careful, as the two weakest civilisations at the turn of each era is eliminated from the campaign permanently. So, choose your difficulty level wisely.

Unfortunately, the graphically impressive aspect comes with a price. As you explore much of the map and the cities grow, the title starts to bog you down on higher visual settings. The performance is certainly not what it should be, and I had the misfortune of getting quite low frames-per-second and the experience felt sluggish after a while. Even when I lowered various settings, some performance issues persisted. This is something the developers will have to fix and I don't think everything will be fixed before launch.

The sound is not as bad as the performance, as the game sounds fine but the music is a bit lacking in personality. I think you could have your own music in the background, without it affecting the experience. My suggestion would be to have more folk music in the early time periods, as historical experiences in particular should be allowed to offer more contemporary music if the budget has space. Travelling through time has great potential to offer more varied and epochal music.

I like the customisation options we are offered; they're robust and you can customise these as needed. This is also clear when you start a new match, as you can choose from many leaders and civilisations, where each have slightly different clothing depending on the time period, bonuses and historical background. The worlds are easy to create with good variety in biomes, but unfortunately, I think they could have been made so that the biomes would also influence the cultures more. It becomes particularly clear how little these are used in the genre when you have just played Frostpunk 2, but Ara has a lot of potential to develop with future expansions.

Although Oxide Games has looked at other similar games for inspiration, there are plenty of fresh elements here that they have done well. Ara: History Untold is beautiful to look at, offers complexity, and nails its concept with flying colours, but it lacks the customisation options its competitors offer, and is technically substandard. It has great potential to be a truly brilliant addition to the genre if the developers can fix the major technical issues, balance problems, and can update the title properly, turning the game into something that also survives the test of time. If you love the genre, there is a lot to love here that also has the potential to grow and get even better in the future.