It's worth seeing every faction for their own story, not just their different playstyles.Īnd those playstyles are wider than different factions in some other 4X titles. The tale of the human-led, jackbooted United Empire is quite different from the religious zealotry of the Vodyani or the arrogant clone-based solidarity of the Horatio. The writing in Endless Space 2 is top-notch and offers something most of its peers simply skip over. Each race has their own branching tale, with a unique starting point and various story choices depending on what kind of ruler you are and where you want your civilization to go. Some of the story quests and content.įrom a narrative perspective, Amplitude surprises and delights with beautiful art and lengthy story segments.

There's a slight learning curve, but once you get it, moving around in Endless Space 2's various gameplay and data screens is easy and charming. The UI looks amazing and more importantly, it's functional, allowing you to zoom between planets and different viewpoints in a few clicks or scrolls of the mousewheel. While many 4X games have a spartan UI that just provides data, Amplitude clearly took its time here. Where Endless Space 2 diverges heavily from its competitors is in the area of presentation. A 4X veteran knows this part internally, but it's an uphill climb for new players. You'll talk to other factions, trade for goods and technology, and then use those goods to build improvements and structures on your owned planets. Eventually, you'll open that to free movement and teleporting with new options like Warp Drive and Hawking Radiation Dowser, which come from specific research opportunities in the extensive tech tree. You have your exploration, which begins constrained, with your ships only able to travel across space lanes that connect star systems together. The core of the game carries forward from the previous entry and the 4X genre in general.

Can they do the same in a more crowded space? Spoiler alert: The space is not actually endless. In 2012, the studio surprised with an excellent entry into the genre. Into this cluster comes Endless Space 2, the sequel for Amplitude Studios' debut game. There's Galactic Civilizations III, Stellaris, Master of Orion, and Distant Worlds. After some cold years, the 4X space genre is pretty well stocked right now.

Endless space 2 united empire