Humankind Game by Amplitude

[AtlantisAuthor]

I just watched the reveal trailer for Sega's upcoming 4X strategy game Humankind, and let's just say the Civ vibes are VERY strong with this one. It would seem very odd for them to make a directly competing product with one of their own most popular IPs, but it sure seems to be the case.

Does anyone know if perhaps the Civilization team are involved in any way with this project?

 

[Victoria]

It’s business, Their nests are too far apart for the same puppet strings. It would be chaos from a project view.

 

[Ceydezed]

I highly doubt so as it is developped by Amplitude, who did Endless Legends for example - would be very strange to see these 2 studios collaborate like this out of the blue!
Trailer is fun though.

 

[player1 fanatic]

It's Amplitudes take on Civilization.

Finally some competition since Call to Power days.

Amplitude Studios did some pretty good 4X games. Endless Space 4X space games and Endless Legend 4X fantasy game.

 

[AtlantisAuthor]

Thanks for the replies. At any rate, it should be very interesting to see how this one develops (and if 2K/Firaxis have any Civ-related response coming in the near future).

 

[DWilson]

Are Sega and 2K/Firaxis connected companies?

 

[Casworon]

Endless Legend is still one of the best 4x games out there.

Amplitude giving some serious competition to Firaxis could be just the thing the 4x genre needs to give it a good kick into next gear. Getting it to rethink some of its questionable design choices it's held onto because of history rather than being good game design

A quick look at the game's features it seems to include two thing's which many experienced 4x players have asked for

A civilization that you build yourself as you play through the game rather than decide upon at the beginning and a single unified victory condition which pools all your achievements in science, culture and warfare into a single pool, so victory comes from being the greatest civilization rather than being the one which completely slanted itself in one direction the most.

These two features immediately shift the game to adapting to the world your presented with rather than deciding at the beginning that you are going to do a 'sicence run' or a 'domination run' and choosing a civ and having almost your entire strategy planned out before you have even hit the begin game button.

I am super, super, super, super excited.

The best thing about this is that Firaxis is definitely aware of Amplitude and their games. Will be interesting to see if any of the game design choices in 'Humankind' end up working their way into future civilization titles. Pushing the genre forward through competition

 

[AtlantisAuthor]

@DWilson

A direct copy/paste from Wikipedia:

On January 24, 2005, Take-Two Interactive acquired Visual Concepts and its Kush Games subsidiary, as well as the intellectual property of the 2K sports game series, from Sega for US$24 million.[2][3] The following day, Take-Two Interactive announced that they had established the 2K publishing label, constisting of the sub-labels 2K Games and 2K Sports, the latter focusing on sports games.[4][5] Several of Take-Two Interactive's development studios—Visual Concepts, Kush Games, Indie Built, Venom Games, PopTop Software and Frog City Software—became studios of 2K, and Take-Two Licensing was merged into the new label.[6]

I'm pretty sure the two studios have collaborated since then, and could've sworn I saw Sega's involvement mentioned somewhere along the line with the Civ franchise. Maybe I was mistaken, though.

 

[DWilson]

Right, I saw about that IP. But from what I saw, Sega itself is an independent company (whether or not they have collaborated in the past notwithstanding)

 

[Victoria]

https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2019/08/19/sega-gamescom-humankind-game-2020/
Sounds like business to me, as in competitive

 

[Ceydezed]

single unified victory condition which pools all your achievements in science, culture and warfare into a single pool, so victory comes from being the greatest civilization rather than being the one which completely slanted itself in one direction the most.

Don`t you think that having one single victory with all your achievement makes your general path to victory even less diversified? If you always have to do the same kind of actions to win, the same way, every game..

 

[steveg700]

We have been inundated with sooooooooo many space 4X games over the last five years or so, and nobody has really made any effort to do historical 4X, which Firaxis has provden (and made) the most popular flavor of 4X.

Just mind-boggling it took so long.

 

[Victoria]

The worrying thing is, will this change firaxis’s patch cycle?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The worrying thing is, will this change firaxis’s patch cycle?

My constant worry/frustration is that Firaxis NEEDS a constant 'Patch Cycle' to correct all their mistakes . . .

 

[OneLastTurn]

Sega and 2K are completely unrelated. Sega sold Visual Concepts to Take-Two, and that was the extent of their interaction.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It looks pretty. I would need more info though. I like the idea of mixing and matching traits. Particularly if you can adapt them over the course of the game.

 

[qadams]

Something interesting I noticed while watching the trailer — inside the hexes are square grids, giving a distinctive look to their city layouts.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Something interesting I noticed while watching the trailer — inside the hexes are square grids, giving a distinctive look to their city layouts.

View attachment 533124

The city streets do look organic.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

It looks pretty. I would need more info though. I like the idea of mixing and matching traits. Particularly if you can adapt them over the course of the game.

From what I read there are about 60 "civilizations" with 10 from each era.
I saw a screenshot of what it looked like you choose in the beginning between Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Hittites etc. and from then as you advance through the ages you adopt the cultures of others like possibly Rome in the Classical Era and Khmer in the Medieval and so on.

 

[steveg700]

It looks pretty. I would need more info though. I like the idea of mixing and matching traits. Particularly if you can adapt them over the course of the game.

I have no idea what's in Humankind, but with all the Civ franchise's focus on playing vague simulations of historical civilizations, it would be nice to see an alternate approach where the only asymmetrical component is starting location and then players build up their civilizations from that point on, unlocking abilities by playing the game in a certain fashion. Basically what we do for pantheons and religious beliefs now, but on a grander scale.