Ara: History Untold new gameplay revealed – coming out Fall 2024

thesixthaxis.com:

Oxide Games has shared a fresh look at their 4X strategy game Ara: History Untold, which is set to release in Fall 2024 for PC, and with a day one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The dive into the game’s development showed off plenty of glimpses of the alt-world way that landmarks like Stonehenge or Statue of Liberty can pop up in the middle of cities, the visual fidelity of the battles, and naturalistic way that you can zoom right in and see people logging in forests, for example. It truly is quite stunning, and this living world will change as you play and make choices.

There’s a Prestige system that will determine how you’re viewed on the way to winning. There’s no set victory conditions, but rather you choose how you want to progress and show your excellence, whether that’s militarily, technologically or culturally. Oh, and there’s an intriguing simultaneous turn system running through this.

Oxide has previously talked about trying to add some new X’s to the definition of a 4X game with eXpression and eXperimentation. Expression will aim to let the player define their own nation, bringing a more distinct and personal touch to your playthrough, while experimentation tries to remove that idealised runs by presenting new tech research and crafting options with each game.

The key here is that there’s still no best path to follow. As you harvest and start crafting improvements and items for your nation, you can boost city stats for a few turns, but some goods will boost stats in one way, and reduce stats in another way. More clear cut are Improvements, whether that’s beautifying a cathedral with stained glass or improving buildings to help train better troops or make more specialised citizens like merchants and missionaries that can spread your influence in other ways. Crafting takes place on a national level, which forces you to make particular choices and tradeoffs.

Ara: Untold has been developed with input from the game’s burgeoning community. Oxide Games has invited Xbox