Ara: History Untold

[The_J]

Ara: History Untold arrives autumn 2024

Alternate history strategy title Ara: History Untold will launch for PC in autumn 2024, developer Oxide Games announced…

www.eurogamer.net

Release will be in autumn.

 

[GeneralZIft]

I'm late to the party, I didn't know this game existed!

I'm a little worried about this crafting system. And the graphics are a tiny bit strange to me, it feels like they went all in on realism now the people are tiny, but at the same time it doesn't look super realistic.

Also the victory conditions seem like glorified score. I'm unsure, what do you guys think?

 

[SeelingCat]

From today's video:

Xerxes I leads Persia (and Charlemagne confirmed)

Otto and Zenobia confirmed

The Apsáalooke leader is Osh-Tisch

Julius Caesar leads Rome

EDIT: It also looks like the leader list is also alphabetical* by civ:

Which (IMO) strongly implies that Alexander is leading Greece and not macedon; and that the mystery woman is Korea.

*with some adjustment; namely that assuming everything between Thailand and USA/Venezuela begins with "the"; that the Apsáalooke are under "the Crow" and that Persia is under... Haxāmaniš i.e. Achaemenids, but that's just a wild guess. We've definitely seen "Apsáalooke" used in game though so maybe it's some sort of internal coding?

 

[The_J]

And we are now at the 16th dev diary for Ara: History Untold.
This time the devs talk about gaming the art in the game. They talk about how to choose the style for a game, how to properly represent cultures and how they try to give a customized style for each new play of the game.

 

[The_J]

Actually this dev diary is also quite interesting.

 

[The_J]

And we are now at the 17th dev diary for Ara: History Untold.
This time the devs talk essentially about how wonders and other monumental buildings are getting into the game, from the initial decision what to include, through the whole design process.

 

[Zegangani]

This latest Dev Diary is the weakest we got so far ngl. Would have been ok if it was released when they were releasing DDs on a weekly basis, but after more than a Month of waiting for a new DD, it felt very faint. Don't get me wrong, I like Wonders, but IMO they don't deserve an exclusive 12 mins Video, where a much more important Mechanic, Warfare, only got some bits of attention here and there. If we're getting DDs monthly now, then I expect more meatier stuff, things like Late Game, Diplomacy, Warfare, Scenarios, maybe even some actual Gameplay Videos instead of just cut-scenes...etc.

Also, have Fun traveling the World, Stakuyi! Enjoy!

 

[Sephi]

Wonders have always been a fan favorite, they definetly deserve their own DD. It would have been cool to include some specific examples, like what resources does wonder X need and what strategies does it enable.

 

[Zegangani]

Not if the previous Dev Diary was 5+ weeks ago. You usually cram such a minor DD between other DDs (or as one of the latests DDs), and not after a long wait, were people expect a juicy DD with new reveals and insights (to make the wait worth it). This DD didn't reveal anything new, it was all self-explanatory and not very interesting. It didn't even go into details about Wonders themselves, like what you suggested, but felt more like a talk about Wonders 'in general'.

Coupled with the fact that more important mechanics didn't even get a noteworthy Spotlight, the previous DD being just a different version of a previous DD about Art, and the fact that we're now only getting monthly DDs (which means there isn't much more to talk about), I'm starting to feel there isn't much depth to ARA as I hoped for. Usually, a Game with many and deep mechanics gets DDs filled to the brim with Details, especially so close to release (supposedly this Fall), but ARA's DD get less and less detailed, and now we're getting even less DDs .

I was holding my expectations for this game a little back, but still was hopeful that it will be a better and more replayable game than Humankind. But these recent DDs just further convince me to hold my expectations even more back.

 

[Sephi]

I totally agree with that. I feel like the dev diaries are more like dev videos where they have a fairly broad discussion about the development of the game. Their target audience is probably general gamepass enjoyers and not strategy fanatics who want to know all the details.

I guess we will get most of the juicy details close to release.

 

[Zegangani]

I guess we will get most of the juicy details close to release.

I hope that too. I guess we have to wait and see.

 

[The_J]

Another video, this time a dev Q&A:

EDIT: I find her somewhat...um... annoying. EDIT3: It is informative though.

EDIT2: The summary which I put on the main site:
After many dev diaries for Ara: History Untold we now get the first Q&A. In this Q&A the devs talk about which platforms Ara will be released on, if you can change from simultaneous turns to real turn-based turns, the long path to get map sizes right, and much more.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

Another video, this time a dev Q&A:

EDIT: I find her somewhat...um... annoying.

Really? She was very likeable to me.

 

[The_J]

Different people have different tastes .

 

[Zegangani]

I also find her likeable, seems like the Person you'll never get bored with.

Though, I have to say, the Q&A feels more like Advertising (Announcing ARA Board Game, more supported Languages, Insider Program) than an actual Q&A (only 3 answered questions, and a dodged one. that's barely a Q&A, even in a 10 min Video).

 

[Sephi]

I think that only one copy of the boardgame exists and I doubt that it is for sale. The original civilization game played like a boardgame but it never felt like one. I hope that they can also figure that one out. Civ6 was too gameboardy for me with their policy cards and sciene bonuses from mountains or whatever.

 

[Rac]

Ok, support for 25 languages at launch, among the localizations will be Turkish, German, Japanese, Korean, French and Italian... Really impressive in that department, and we have confimation that Thailand leader is Ram Khamhaeng

Also... "The First Persian Empire" sure is an name, I mean, they could go with Achamenids here you know

 

[Rac]

Actually about the language support... Holy moly

 

[CivLuvah]

I'm starting to feel there isn't much depth to ARA as I hoped for. Usually, a Game with many and deep mechanics gets DDs filled to the brim with Details, especially so close to release (supposedly this Fall), but ARA's DD get less and less detailed, and now we're getting even less DDs .

To be fair, not all marketing teams act the same way, and they might have been busy doing other stuff behind the scenes. On the other hand of the spectrum, there are games whose DDs are incredibly detailed, but they end up not working or as interesting as the player expected them to be. In the case of ARA, there are other core mechanics present in the videos that they still have to explain. The fact is, unless either one of us is in the Insider Program, we wouldn't know what's actually happening. That doesn't mean they did not work on those mechanics. Unless a game development team is incredibly incompetent (which Oxide clearly isn't by the looks of it), it seems unlikely that a game on this scale would not have those core mechanics already at work.

 

[Sephi]

and another one