The franchise of Age of Wonders is coming back this August with the latest installment: Planetfall. Though it might not be what you were looking for if you are a fan of the series.
This time the game drives away from its fantasy track to embrace the sci-fi genre to great achievement. And not like the very underwhelming Beyond Earth, the new title will take full advantages of science fiction to create interesting worlds and races for gamers to enjoy.
Planetfall
If you are not familiar with the AoW series or don't know what is Planetfall, then the most simple to describe it is the combination of XCOM and Civilization.
Planetfall is a typical 4X genre game so normally you would play on the macro management level. But one a fight breaks out it becomes an XCOM type strategy turn-based game. I tried the game in the middle to late part of a match, thanks to that I got an overview of what this game offers. But the truth is that I will need to spend more time to fall in love with this game.
In my 30' demo, the developer of the game showed me a video about The Assembly race.
In Planetfall, you could choose from huge classes varieties, and they are much more interesting than the usual type of cliches you know by now. And from the information of the game that we got until now, we know that all current factions come from once mighty Star Union.
Though we don't know yet the reason for the destruction of this Union, some developers of the game even describe the Star Union's fall as a stand-out character. Quite different than other titles in the genre where you will make your story, Planetfall would be a more engaging and lore-heavy world to serve as the background for the players.
A 4X strategy game
Once into an actual match, I got a brief on the overall mechanics of the map of the world in this 4X title.
It has tech trees and cites as you would expect, but they have added more spice into it by dividing the maps into different sectors that can be taken into colonies. Then you could appoint a leader to run that colony that you could create by yourself or choose from the preset options.
You can also specialize in each sector like research or food production. In comparison with the depth of cities in Civilization VI with all of their improvements, Planetfall will be strategic and unique with its specialization.
After studying about all that, I kicked off with my The Assembly and the Doomsday weapon. It is a weapon that bases on the Secret Technology of their race.
At the begin of the game that will be the 2nd thing that you choose. And pay attention because they are science fiction abilities that could change the whole match. My race secret technology names xenoplague, and the Doomsday weapon has an appropriate name of Omega Strain.
The Assembly uses Omega Strain to mutate people with a virus, that homogenize the race and mind of others so that they could control them. In the game, Omega Strain can attack every 10 turns and would cause your opponents to lose their food supply by 100%.
It decreases the strength of their units as well as the healing speed of them on the map. Plus it also gives buffs to units of The Assembly. After activating that ability, all the enemies will be angry at you so you better protect your Omega Towers well. In my case, I used a Vanguard to protect the tower.
XCOM battles
The style of strategy in this game will change once you enter combat between two units. From a Civilization type 4x strategy game, it turns into a strategy turn-based game (kinda like XCOM). This mechanic worked well in the past with Age of Empires III, and they also manage to pull it off in Planetfall, though it makes the late match make last longer than usual.
I got access to many types of units in my demo: tank characters, snipers, regular soldiers, etc. Each one has its own disadvantages and advantages that you could utilize to end the match swiftly.
Once I faced off a massive mech that could easily kill tons of my small units. So, to handle that, I bring my tank units in the front while my damage dealers deliver the blow.
That was fun to take down that giant mech, but there are still tons of enemies that had to take down in my progress path. The portion of the match I tried was pretty lengthy given the level of the units that I began with. About haft of the demo time, I spent at that section, it was one battle for a turn I think.
However, I didn't mind that because it is obvious that this game is a timesink. Given that it is a 4X title, that is not necessarily a bad thing.
It is coming soon
These days while other strategy games are trying to ape the others, and usually the popular are kinda bad, Planetfall avoid that by keeping its originality while developing something unique on top of that. They are things like sector specializations, secret technologies, and customizable leaders,
Age of Wonders: Planetfall from Paradox Interactive and Triumph Studios will go to PS4, Xbox One, and PC on the 6th of August this year.
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