In recent years the genre of 4x (explore, expand, exploit and exterminate) has seen the release of many exponents of undeniable value. Being a kind of niche, therefore not obsessed with running behind the latest market trends, the development teams have competed to interpret it as widely and inspired as possible ,
also taking advantage of new distribution systems, such as early access, to get feedback during the development so as to adjust the shooting in the running.
To say, in the last two years or so we have been able to play jewelry such as Stellaris, Civilization VI, Galactic Civilization III (recently expanded by Crusade ) and others, while only hybrids like Starpoint Gemini Warlords or Northgard have come out in recent weeks. . In a picture so rich in choices, a particular role has been played by Amplitude Studios with its Endless, starting from the first
Endless Space with which it has developed the interface that we have then seen finished in Endless Legend and which we find, still improved, in Endless Space 2, the subject of this review. Being able to navigate through the many menus with just a few clicks is essential so as not to overload the training phase too much, which in the 4x is very important in order not to let the player escape.
The learning curve of the various mechanics, especially those related to technological development, is indeed very steep and being faced with a heavy and cumbersome interface would aggravate even more the difficulty of entry into play. In short, we are talking about an essential characteristic of the genre, a characteristic that Amplitude has studied with care certosina and that finishes with title in title.
Probably only the Firaxis interfaces are just as well elaborated, which is all saying given the pedigree of that development team.
Will Endless Space 2 have something new to say in the 4x genre? We have reviewed it to find out!
EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION
Describing Endless Space 2 in its fundamental concept is not difficult, because it shares it with all the other cited space strategists (and not): at the controls of one of the eight available races, it is necessary to explore the space and expand as much as possible, establishing colonies or looking for ancient artifacts produced by the Endless race, now extinct.
Obviously we are not alone in the universe and we will have to face the competition of other civilizations, which have our same objective. Having chosen our faction, we immediately find ourselves in deep space. Initially we know only one planetary system, the one where our mother planet is located and, globally, our resources are very limited.
As tradition dictates, we are given a unit to start exploring, and one of settlers to establish an outpost in case we manage to find another habitable planet, less remote than it seems. The management of the units is similar to that of Endless
Legend, apart from the customization options, and allows you to quickly join the ships in the same system fleets, maybe assigning a unit hero to drive them.The exploration itself takes place on pre-established routes that connect planetary systems: select the destination and our fleet, or single spacecraft, departs for the journey. The planets offer very different environments.
At the beginning there will be few colonizable ones (let’s say those similar to the mother planet), but with the development of new technologies, which occurs by selecting them from the classic tree scheme, in this case divided into four macro categories, colonies can be established even in environments before inaccessible.
As we said our galactic empire can develop along four lines, which change very much the approach to the game: for example a society strongly focused on militarism will expand faster but will be constantly at war, while one focused on the economy will exploit the resources of the various planets, but it will be weaker and so on.
