Empire of the Ants Preview: Explore a Weird (and Photorealistic) Insect Kingdom
Empire of the Ants is really effective at making you feel like a very tiny being within a much larger world. As a new strategy adventure game set in the insect kingdom, you command an army of ants to explore, expand, and extract resources in a large, near-photorealistic world that looks like it could be in someone's backyard.
I got an early preview of the upcoming strategy adventure game starring tons and tons of ants, and I saw how exploring a seemingly mundane world looks far grander and more treacherous from the perspective of a lone ant.
Empire of the Ants is based on the novels by Bernard Werber and puts you in the role of an ordinary ant who must navigate the insect hierarchy of an ant colony nestled in the woods, all while trying to understand what's going on in the world above the ground level of Insect-kind. As this Ant protagonist, you'll eventually become one of the colony's most valuable assets, given their ease of mobility when exploring the vast landscape of wilderness and their budding skills as a commander of the colony's legion of ants. As you help the Ant Queen expand the population, you'll encounter rival colonies looking to take what's yours.
Interestingly, this is the second outing for Empire of the Ants in video game form, with the original 2000 game taking more of a grand strategy approach. This new attempt from developer Tower Five mixes a narrative adventure game with ground-level strategy action where you command an army to collect resources and lay siege to opposing factions.
In my preview, I got to dive into the early missions of the story campaign, which saw the protagonist explore the surrounding areas around their colony. While playing as an ant in a video game on paper sounds rather dull, Empire of the Ants excitingly presents this conceit by really leaning into the scope of the world.
When not commanding other insects, you can freely explore the colony's surrounding area and even chat with fellow ants, who are named by their birth
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