Ara: History Untold Game Review – Complex but Rewarding 

Fans of 4X games (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) have regularly been blessed with newly released titles. One or two games launched annually provide ample choice for genre fans. Another title added to the list is Ara: History Untold. It’s a game dedicated to the fans, but how does it hold up, and is it worth a try for newbies or those novices amongst us?

Wetting Your Feet

Jumping straight into Ara: History Untold, you can choose your faction to play as and whether you’d want to commence with a tutorial. The tutorial isn’t one of those one-off, short tasks where things are simplified to assist in picking up the basics. Instead, you’re thrust into the game with a few hints and tasks on-screen to help you progress in the early game. You can keep this on or hide the menu as you gain confidence. 

On the whole, the game and its objectives are pretty straightforward. You choose a civilisation to lead and play through an alternative version of history, where various nations of a similar timeframe build their nations alongside you in a race to the top of the leaderboard. As a South African, it was almost inevitable that I would go with the Zulu nation as my first attempt. 

Along this journey, you’ll be presented with many upgrades, such as reaching new eras as you expand, building new cities in various regions across the map, and allying with or attempting to destroy your neighbours. While the early game is relatively simple, where you can simply exist in your bubble, your journey would inevitably lead to war. 

In Pursuit of Continuous Expansion

As with most 4X games, you’re tasked with establishing your city (before it becomes a kingdom or fully-fledged nation), expanding its borders, gathering resources and exploring the far ends of the map. However, unlike other titles that have your world split into slices of hexagons, Ara: History Untold features a more creative, region-based expanse system. Here, each neighbouring region is split into different resources, each having two to five zones. These zones allow players to build structures that produce resources needed to expand. 

At the very beginning, I wasn’t aware which resources would be most needed, with each resource suited for a different type of expansion, army production and more. Finding a balance in resources, especially food and housing is critical to growing your cities, expanding territories and building an army strong enough to defend and attack. To put things bluntly, I was entirely out of my depth. Collecting resources and expanding as quickly as possible became my undoing. I quickly rose the ranks on the leaderboard of nations, only to find my efforts ground to a complete halt once I maxed out all my capabilities. At this stage, I decided to declare war on a surrounding nation to gain more resources to help my people. But, alas, it was all in vain. 

I wasn’t defeated, although I was very close to it. Instead, I had fallen so far down the rankings that my existence on the world map marked the end of the game. Having spent the good part of three hours to reach this point, it was a strange manner in which to bow out. At its most basic, that’s the premise of most turn-based games. 

However, Ara: History Untold is a lot more than that. The game can get quite intricate. It was far too complicated for me at the best of times. There are levels to the game at every turn. Choosing a handful of tasks and hitting the button for your next turn is not a simple matter. Here, you must dig deep and select each type of item to craft from almost all structures built across the various regions while planning your next move. You must ensure your people are well fed, with a balance of amenities within each city, expanding to new cities and beyond. You’re given experts to assign to various tasks within your government plan, a research strategy favouring your style of play, allowing you to progress to new eras while keeping up diplomatic ties with other nations. 

Paying Your Dues

Micro-managing each of these aspects with every turn is quite the experience, keeping you occupied with every little facet of Ara: History Untold while keeping you on your toes, awaiting the next set of turns for specific research you need or army to deploy before you push that next mini objective. 

One cannot simply build chariots without researching the wheel, expand mining operations without understanding the intricacies of iron, or take to the seas and sky without their respective research elements. Everything is interconnected, and missing any of these crucial steps can put you back up to 12 turns if not executed in a timely manner. 

Keeping track of your economy is exceptionally critical. Mining or crafting resources needed to build new expansions and raising an army are all key aspects that cannot be taken lightly. At times when items are low, you put too much emphasis on re-establishing your stocks, only to oversupply and spread thin again in other areas. It’s a continuous battle to balance the books or quickly trade with friendly nations to keep things flowing steadily. 

However, it can become apparent that you’ve made one too many incorrect investments, which cannot then be undone 300 turns into the game. It’s difficult to undo the troubles of a city that has expanded beyond its means and does not have the resources to sustain itself. You can only hope to be provided with another expansion token to build a few new buildings and gather more resources to sustain the people. 

All Roads Lead to War

A lot of investment is needed to get the most out of Ara: History Untold while reaching the top of the standings. And, despite all your efforts in diplomacy with your best neighbour, it will ultimately lead to war as you duke it out to reach or remain at the top to achieve victory. In the end, there can be only one. 

Although not needed in the early game, building defensive units and later an army to attack and seize land is where I still need to brush up my skills. Knowing which experts to assign as a General, which armies to join forces with and what will be needed to sack an opposition city’s walls and pillage its inhabitants becomes a much-needed element of the game. As we’ve encountered throughout history, war is inevitable. 

Simple Yet Rich

As for the world and its graphics, it’s a mix of simple elements and beautifully crafted structures that make it stand out. The basic gameplay and feel of the environment in Ara: History Untold are minimalistic, allowing players to pick up and play quickly. As you expand, more advanced structures are introduced, with monuments like Stonehenge, The Pyramids, and Hanging Gardens crafted beautifully. Building these monuments and unique structures is a struggle, but nothing is unattainable when planned out correctly. 

For the most part, the world looks aesthetically pleasing, but it requires a decent configuration to look the part. You can zoom into each region within your city and see the blades of grass blowing around the structures and their inhabitants, making for great visuals. 

However, some elements seem emptier in their creation, such as how armies battle, how each soldier is presented and some of their movements. That said, I wasn’t expecting graphics at the level of FPS games, with the number of moving parts at play. 

A Different History

Ultimately, the game doesn’t delve much into the accuracy of each nation’s rise or underlying elements. It offers some historical people and structures, but none are isolated to their respective nations or eras. Playing as the Zulu Chief Shaka, you can still build The Great Pyramids or Stonehenge if you’d like. It’s a mix-and-match approach of underlying elements and does not involve spending too much time telling real stories. 

Ara: History Untold takes a lot to master, and I’ve not reached that stage even with 20+ hours spent on a few games and mastering the basics. There’s a lot to take in without much sense of purpose, focusing on enjoyment rather than telling any meaningful story. As things ramp up through each new game, it would’ve been helpful to be provided with some assistance or autoplay instead of micro-managing each aspect of the game, which can become overwhelming. In the end, though, it’s a solid 4X game with plenty of potential for the fans.

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