Cantata Preview: A Tactics Empire In The Making
It’s easy to forget how important the stranger side of sci-fi is to the history of strategy games. Titles like Herzog Zwei helped cement the idea of tactical gameplay with mainstream gamers, while the RTS genre was widely popularized by the success of Dune II years before the likes of Warcraft came to dominate the scene. Cantata hasn’t forgotten this, though, and developer Afterschool Studio leans into this sense of the weird.
Cantata is a turn-based strategy game set on the planet of Shoal. Three factions are vying for control, one human, one alien, and one machine, although the player will find all three factions to be as strange as one another in different ways. Over the course of nine campaigns, each with a different commanding officer, the player will see through the varied perspectives and witness the machinations of these warring sides.
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Based on the early access build of Cantata, which launches on 12 May, it's a game that understands what works about turn-based strategy as a genre. There are recognizable elements from games of a similar ilk, such as resource management, base defense, and varied unit attack types like in Advance Wars, but Cantata expands into other areas like supply line construction and handling the world of Shoal as an active faction too. It’s a lot of spinning plates but the game currently doesn’t feel too complex, although newcomers to the genre will likely want to explore the game’s tutorials.
Cantata also has a very unique look to go alongside these distinctive gameplay elements. Its aesthetic of cool, decaying pastels and occasional splashes of bolder colors gives the alien world of Shoal a solitary atmosphere, like stepping out onto the
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