Building, producing units, completing research, capturing outposts, fighting battles, and moving around the overworld all take turns, and all of those actions will eventually need take place multiple times each turn, giving a sense of gravity and urgency to every single move. A colony will be established at the start of each match, and from there they'll have to expand to new territories, build or assimilate a military force, and secure the safety of their people on a planet where other military forces are also being grown.Īll of this action plays out in turn-based fashion, meaning progress is measured in discrete turns. Regardless of the approach chosen, players will need to sort out a few essentials. Victory is earned in the usual sense: The battle is over when there are no more enemies left to fight, be it accomplished through violence or through diplomacy.

Each Faction has come on hard times in some form or fashion, and will find both allies and enemies on the planet's surface. Right from the start, the task seems daunting. Age of Wonders: Planetfall pits this style of play into a science fiction setting, where members of six different races or factions come into conflict simply trying to understand or otherwise survive the world they've come to inhabit. The core of 4X gameplay pushes players to create their own empire. It's a hell of a gameplay hook, and unsurprisingly, it's not for the faint of heart. This is what Age of Wonders: Planetfall feels like: A strategy game where no stone was left unturned, where players are dropped onto an island in a sea of possibilities, given only the few basic tools and instructions they need to build an empire from scratch. But that's effectively what the 4X genre has done: It took a long, hard look at turn-based strategy games, then said to itself, 'Let's do that, but turn everything up to 11 first.'

Think back to the last time you looked at a game and thought to yourself, 'This isn't complex enough.' Can't recall such an event? Neither can I.

Age of wonders planetfall ps4 review