Too often, 4X strategy games focus on the history of the world through its wars. While that’s certainly part of Oxide Games’ Ara: History Untold, it also goes to great lengths to elevate art, music, storytelling, and technology development as far more valuable, memorable aspects of culture growth.
With this twist, Ara: History Untold is a fascinating new 4X game that boasts layers of intrigue, and a depth of character. While there is much familiar in its design – it’s fairly analogous to the Civilization series – it provides constant twists to keep its turn-based action fresh, and provide you with new reasons to expand your chosen culture with an eye for fairness, justice, and creativity.
A fresh perspective on history
As in other 4X games, Ara: History Untold begins with a choice of leadership and nation. Oxide Games has made clever choices in who will lead, prioritising representation of diverse contributions. There are war leaders amongst the pack, but also artists, scientific pioneers, and philosophers, each of which will provide your nation with a specific benefit. Australia, for example, is led not by a politician or Prime Minister, but by Howard Florey, the co-creator of penicillin – in recognition of his contributions to the world.
I spent most of my time with the game playing as Boudica of the Celts, leading Baile Átha Cliath (modern day Dublin) through the eras, with a focus on providing ample food for my flock, while producing various arts and developing monuments to keep my nation memorable.
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Being memorable is actually the most important thing in Ara: History Untold, and it’s a neat twist on the usual formula. While you can spend your time with a view to expand your cities and conquer others in demonstrations of strength, you also have a freedom of choice in how you grow, as succeeding is about cleverness and ingenuity.
It is not enough to be big, you must be memorable, and the least memorable nations will be erased from history as each of the game’s main acts dawn. That’s another twist that will shape how you play – Ara: History Untold is far more focussed on events, and the actual course of history, compared to traditional 4X games.
As you advance your nation, you’ll experience a range of special events that require you to make choices. These can be as simple as providing materials to a neighbouring village or helping out a wandering visitor, and as complex as agreeing to ally with a nation and go to war alongside them. Make clever choices, and you can boost productivity and output in your region. Make the wrong choices, and your people may starve and suffer.
At the end of each of the game’s main acts (determined by how many players advance beyond a particular age), you must have achieved a certain amount of prestige for your nation. That can come in many forms. War is one of them – but it can be more memorable to create brilliant works of art, or establish a monument to your success, or a real world “triumph”.
Playing through as Boudica, I found a lovely approach in assigning my teams of experts to creating Masterpieces, while saving larger stretches of land for triumph. By the third age, I was struggling to remain memorable, but that was down to wasting much time and many rounds slowly understanding the many intricacies of gameplay.
Ara: History Untold is a complex game
Ara: History Untold is a complex game that takes time to fully understand. While a guiding hand tutorial will point you in the right direction, there are layers upon layers of gameplay mechanics that all interlock, and all require you to understand linking chains of dependencies.
At the beginning of one act, you may get a quest to build a particular location – The Library of Celsus, for example. This has prerequisites for particular research, and this research can only be unlocked at a certain age. When you eventually unlock the ability to build the library, you’ll also need to unlock paper and other materials. That requires further research, and the establishment of particular buildings to produce those materials.
There is a hover system that allows you to track these links, but it can feel overwhelming to trek through these many menus, hunting down each particular requirement, and where exactly it originates.
This density allows for great depth in gameplay, at the very least. Once you master what each building does, and which technologies are most useful for memorable progress, you can build a strategy for advancing progress and becoming a ruling nation.
Ara: History Untold‘s predecessors follow a similar pathway, but lack the same intricacy presented here. Acts last hours in this game, and building up cities takes ample time. For those looking to emerge from history as a conquering hero, there is great opportunity to expand your armies, venture forth, and conquer cities in automated battles. There’s also room for quieter, steadily building nations, and those looking to pursue a more peaceful course.
The sheer range of ways to experiment in Ara: History Untold is impressive – as are the stories you can tell. In my playthrough, I chose early on to be a pacifist nation, and for the most part, this approach allowed me to continue growing my arts and culture scene in earnest. I placated nearby neighbours with gifts and agreements to share research, and eventually, I agreed to ally with them in future wars.
Inevitably, this approach led to high chaos: I was friends with Italy, but the Aztec’s went to war with them, and I had agreed to tag along. Of course, Italy didn’t like that very much – so we ended up in a three-way stalemate of disdain, as I popped along to help one friend with war against another. Regardless, it made for a fascinating story, as Italy won the war, and our three nations entered into a period of awkward peace.
I sent a few gifts to Italy as an apology, and they refused each and every one. Back to being a lone nation, I chose to refuse future war efforts, and began tumbling down the path to irrelevancy. It was balance that was required in this playthrough. Balancing the needs of my people, the appetite of other nations for war, and the growth of my artistic endeavours. With more cities, and more plots, I could continue to grow into later ages, advancing my technologies and becoming more self-sustaining.
It’s in these complications that Ara: History Untold shines brightest. It has seemingly learned core lessons from its forebears in the 4X genre, using them as stepping stones to advance its core gameplay loop, and provide new layers of depth where needed. Its more holistic approach to building nations, and its move away from war as singular motivator, makes it a very well-rounded, clever strategy game – and one that rewards your time and energy.
Four stars: ★★★★
Ara: History Untold
Platforms: PC
Developer: Oxide Games
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Release Date: 24 September 2024
A PC code for Ara: History Untold was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review. GamesHub reviews were previously rated on a five-point scale. As of 29 July 2024, they are rated on a ten-point scale.
