"Ara: History Untold tries to do too many things at once, and unfortunately ends up failing at most of them."
There is something to be said for temperance and realism. Overstretching, while admirable, can result in failure, and while I encourage developers to push themselves beyond their limits, there comes a point when reaching for the impossible is not advisable.
The main issue with Ara: History Untold is that the developers are trying to challenge multiple games at once, while splitting their attention between so many divergent systems that every single aspect of the game is mediocre at best.
In theory, a 4X game with a heavy emphasis on production akin to Anno games is a great idea, and they have partially succeeded in this regard. Unfortunately, partial success still results in failure when you are going head to head with some of the biggest titles in the highly competitive 4X genre.
Ara: History Untold is a very well-made game, and it handles production and warfare fairly well. Unfortunately, it is also very unbalanced and grindy, and crafted items and military units take an excessively long time to produce, often costing far more than they are worth.
A perfect example of this is how many items require accelerators (wealth, rare materials etc) to produce in a reasonable time considering the volume in which they are needed, only for the cost of the accelerators to be far beyond the value of the item created.
A perfect example is metal tools, which require a vast amount of gold and materials to produce even one per turn, while the benefits they offer as upgrade materials do not come close to covering the cost of acquisition for many turns, with some upgrades taking over 100 turns to pay for themselves.
One of my main issues with Ara: History Untold is how it handles time in such an inconsistent manner, with players often being forced to spend multiple in-game years on even mundane tasks. The production of simple wooden tools can take the equivalent of 10 years in less developed regions, something that primitive man were able to produce easily in vast quantities using only stone and bone tools and a large amount of pre-chewed deer sinew (seriously, they used to chew it first to make it easier to work with).
Specialist food is another point of contention, with some food items such as bread taking over 5 years per loaf even with accelerators active, and over a decade without acceleration. Nothing like fresh-baked bread, eh?
Production issues aside, Ara: History Untold also suffers from a weak diplomatic system that is less feature-complete than most other games in the genre. It can best be described as a slightly less feature complete (albeit prettier) version of the diplomacy system from Civilization II, a title that released almost 30 years ago.
One area in which Ara: History Untold truly excels is combat. Battles take place over multiple turns, and armies take time to muster. The concept of reinforcing the front is far more common than in most 4X games. In addition, the AI is surprisingly good at war, and will often split its forces between defending its own holdings while also pushing into your territory, including multi-pronged and diversion attacks.
In a recent war, the enemy moved the bulk of its forces to engage my main army while also sending separate armies to harass my smaller settlements and probe my capital’s defences.
My only complaint with Ara: History Untold’s warfare system is that due to how unbalanced and slow production is, preparing for even the smallest skirmish can take an inordinate number of turns, resulting in players spending more time waiting for forces to build and muster than actually engaging with the enemy.
Ara: History Untold is a strategy game developed by Oxide Games and published by Xbox Game Studios, it released on 24 September 2024, and is available exclusively on PC.
Ara: History Untold supports the following peripherals:
Ara: History Untold is rated PEGI 12+ and contains:
Ara: History Untold is not a bad game, and for someone looking to enjoy a slightly above-average generic 4X experience, there is some fun to be had.
However, there are far more polished games out there that offer the average gamer a much better experience.
We found Ara: History Untold to be a mediocre game, meaning that while it has some redeeming qualities, it's held back by noticeable flaws that prevent it from being truly enjoyable.
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