I was lucky enough to receive an early access code for Industrial Annihilation. Initially, it appears to be a standard real-time strategy (RTS) game. You play a giant robot commander teleported onto a battlefield who then gathers resources, builds a base, and raises an army to defeat opponents.
The main difference between Industrial Annihilation and previous RTS games is logistics. Resources must be physically transported between buildings via conveyor belts or trucks. Mid- and late-game buildings or units also require intermediate components instead of just mined or gathered resources.
As a result, Industrial Annihilation is as much a factory game, like Factorio, as it is an RTS, like Planetary Annihilation. Experienced factory game players will feel at home with the early access version’s more strategic, measured play that optimizes base building. However, experienced RTS players may miss the hectic urgency to out-build, out-manoeuvre and destroy their opponents.
Unfortunately, the early access version of Industrial Annihilation does not address how these disparate play styles will complement each other. While both modern RTS and factory games have roots in early RTS games, each engages distinct player groups. The success of Industrial Annihilation hinges on their synergy.
As expected, the pre-release version is not what we would expect from a completed game. For example, Industrial Annihilation comes with a four-mission campaign. These are intended as tutorials, but guidance is minimal. The player has to figure out what buildings and units do and how to achieve the required goals. This can be fun but also tiresome and frustrating.
Moreover, Industrial Annihilation lacks many quality-of-life features, like showing the unit’s weapon range, an energy management overview or double tapping a group’s number to centre the camera on it. Placing conveyor belts and connectors is fiddly. The audio is minimal. You cannot even save your game, so if you get impatient during a tutorial mission and go blasting away with your commander, you may need to replay the entire multi-hour mission if you screw up.
Releasing a version of the game in this state is risky. Many have criticized the developers for Industrial Annihilation‘s poor quality and unclear vision. Early access games are often more polished and complete. However, releasing an early access version is also a brave attempt to engage the player base early to find bugs and elicit broad feedback.
Whether you should engage with Industrial Annihilation now depends on your tolerance for in-complete software and whether you want to be part of the development journey. Industrial Annihilation has the potential for something special, but it is only potential for now.
Everspace 2 is a space fight simulator with 3D movement focusing heavily on combat, exploration and puzzles. Rockfish Games, the developer, describes Everspace 2 as a “space shooter” with “RPG elements” on its Steam page. That is untrue. Everspace 2 is an action role playing game (ARPG) like Diablo or Path of Exile. And it is terrific.
You play Adam Roslin, an ex-military fighter pilot working for an uncaring and manipulative corporation. After a routine mission goes wrong, you are captured by outlaws and escape to a long abandoned base. You and your fellow escapees then rebuild and prepare for a heist that could set you all free.
Flying your ship in Everspace 2 is a joy. The controls are less detailed than those of more complex space simulators like Elite Dangerous. Still, such an outwardly arcade-like game offers a surprising degree of control. Dodging enemy fire, circling capital ships, and navigating maze-like tunnels all feel fluid and natural.
The combat is vibrant, frantic and engaging. Like most ARPGs, you usually fight swarms of weaker enemies, each with different weapons, defences, and abilities. This structure provides constant variety and changing tactics. Your relative strength also fuels the requisite power fantasy.
A warm red star and a blue nebula shine through an asteroid field
Locations also contain puzzles, providing cerebral but slower-paced play. As you fly around, your sensors can detect and track nearby loot, mineral deposits or other points of interest. Your ship has a tractor beam that you can use to pick up and move things around, such as removing debris from a passage or picking up a battery to slot it into a socket elsewhere. These usually unlock doors or containers of potential ship upgrades.
Everspace 2 tells its main story through cut scenes showing hand-drawn images with voice-overs. While low-budget, this style works well for a game focused on flying spaceships. The main quest has excellent pacing while introducing more about the universe and its inhabitants.
There are plenty of side quests and activities, too. As with many RPGs, they are often the most interesting, flesh out the world and introduce unique NPCs. Chasing rogue AIs, rescuing trapped miners, or appeasing crime lords are all on the cards. Racing tracks and rifts filled with difficult enemies satiate those seeking a challenge.
Mechanically, Everspace 2 is a testament to game balance. Everything, including your character, gear, and enemies, is geared to a level. Level differences are more pronounced than in other games. Foes more than a few levels above you are deadly. Those a few levels beneath you will be merely speed bumps. Everspace 2 periodically increases the level of enemies to keep the challenge consistent.
A ringed planet seen from the surface of a desert planet
Aesthetically, Everspace 2 is beautiful. Each location is a postcard, with asteroids, massive space stations, aging wrecks, vertigo-inducing icebergs and/or vibrant nebulae. Many are varied and original, like an iceberg in a solar flare or a megafauna skeleton, evoking wonder and appreciation. Each star system also has its distinct look, making them feel unique.
The electronica soundtrack is also on point, supporting the sci-fi feel. The zen-like cruising pieces contrast with the exciting, upbeat combat ones.
A green beacon in the middle of a dark gas cloud
However, Everspace 2 is not perfect. My biggest gripe is with the writing in the main storyline. No one expects deep or complex writing from an ARPG, but this does not excuse poor writing.
The characters need more substance. Ben and Delia are just cardboard cutouts and deserve motivation and agency. Maddock becomes a contrived, grumpy omni-antagonist. Combining some supporting characters, like Ben and Tareem, would have enhanced both. Everspace 2 also unnecessarily sexualizes a female supporting character at one point.
Similarly, the early main story has too much “I need you to do this, but I am not going to tell you why for at least two cut scenes.” It feels unnecessarily opaque and confrontational. The game also removes the player’s agency at a few key moments, railroading you.
My other gripe is with loot management. Most of the copious loot enemies drop is trash you sell or disassemble for crafting components. The rare upgrade is fun, and Everspace 2‘s crafting system means you will always have suitable weapons, modules or consumables.
However, the constant gear drops and level churn mean periodically yanking yourself out of the fun combat and puzzle game loops to clear your inventory. Loot management is a broader problem with ARPGs’ variable intermittent reward structure, but it is still a problem.
A ship in an asteroid field hovering over a ringed planet
I initially thought Everspace 2‘slack of replayability would be a problem. It lacks a skill tree or other ARPG elements that specialize your character. No advancement or story choice blocks off content. ARPGs have traditionally used these to encourage players to create different characters to replay content differently.
However, being able to quickly switch out a new ship or experiment with new weapons or modules means experimentation or change is refreshingly easy. Meanwhile, the perk and challenge systems provide attainable alternative goals that offer useful benefits instead of gatekeeping high-level content from less dedicated players.
Ultimately, Everspace 2 is a game that knows what it wants to be. It doubles down on that explore -> shoot -> loot -> craft game loop. If you enjoy that loop, and you will find out quickly or via the free demo, the game promises hours of the same. Otherwise, you will bounce off Everspace 2 hard.
Everspace 2 also knows what it does not want to be. It is single-player and offline, eschewing the complex code, gameplay loops and community management required for multiplayer or online play. It focuses on quality over quantity, providing a few well-developed star systems to explore. There is no piracy, salvage, political simulation or other distractions.
It took me about 60 hours to complete the main quest, including most side quests and challenges. As with most RPGs, you could complete it in under half that time, but you would miss the best content. Meanwhile, the developers continue expanding and enhancing the game, showing a welcome love and attention to detail. If only all ARPGs were this good.
Chants of Sennaar is a 3D puzzle game developed by Rundisc. It focuses on decoding and translating languages, combining the deductive reasoning from The Return of the Obra Din with the language learning from Heaven’s Gate.
The goal of Chants of Sennaar is to ascend to the top of a vast tower, learning the language of each level’s inhabitants as you go. Of course, nothing tells you that. You infer it from the game’s conversations and level design.
The mechanics of learning languages are simple and ingenious. You encounter glyphs, symbols that represent words, in writing, signs, or conversation. You infer a glyph’s meaning from its context. For example, a glyph on a sign over a bottle probably means bottle.
A clever, succinct way to convey numbers
You automatically capture glyphs in your notebook, where you can type in a meaning or clue. Those meanings are written above the glyphs, giving a rough translation on the fly. You can then iterate with different meanings until you are happy.
Occasionally, you draw pictures in your notebook and then match glyphs to their drawings. If you get all the glyphs correct, the game confirms their meanings, making inferring the meaning of other glyphs easier. In the worst-case scenario, you can keep guessing until you get it right.
Clearly, the main challenge in Chants of Sennaar is inferring or deducing the meanings of glyphs. The languages are simple, restricted to 40 to 50 words each. Some languages even embed hints or patterns in the glyphs themselves.
However, decoding languages is not straightforward. The tower’s levels are non-linear, so missing a vital clue is easy. Language and meaning are also flexible. If I see a glyph next to an arrow pointing up, does the glyph mean up, high, north, ascend, or just arrow?
Meanwhile, Chants of Sennaar is a puzzle game at heart. Beyond language translation, some puzzles are stealth sections where you must sneak past guards. Some areas are maze-like. Some have simple lever combinations. Sometimes, you must find an item that will unlock a puzzle elsewhere. The variety keeps things fresh. There is even a Flappy Bird mini-game to find.
Your first puzzle
The game’s cel shaded art style is simplistic but on point. For example, the yellow and orange walled areas of the Devotees, complete with cats and crows, are obviously different from the blue walls and red water of the Warriors, complete with distant but intrigued lizards.
The audio and soundtrack are subtle but thematic. Early pieces are mainly orchestral but include obscure instruments, drums, claps and other tribal influences to give it a primitive feel. The instrument balance shifts subtly as you progress and discover the true nature of the tower. The audio is mainly environmental, with wonderfully high-quality bubbling water and wind at times.
My criticisms of Chants of Sennaar are few. While the game tracks the glyphs and meanings, it does not track word order. This omission makes translating between some languages more challenging. You can repeat conversations, but you do not track them in your notebook. This decision keeps your notebook decluttered but means you must return to where that conversation occurred to replay it. Some puzzles get obtuse toward the end, too.
Overall, completing Chants of Sennaar is a cerebral ten to fifteen hours for those who love language puzzles. If you do not, this game will be frustrating, boring or both. However, given that its rarest achievement has a 25.8% completion rate at the time of writing, Chants of Sennaar has found its feet with a niche but dedicated audience.
Enshrouded is a new early access, cooperative, survival crafting game from Keen Games. You play a “flameborn”, a magically enhanced human in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world. The “shroud”, a deadly mist, has covered parts of the world, filling them with alien and dangerous inhabitants. Your job is to learn what happened and restore the world.
Mechanically, Enshrouded plays like other fantasy survival crafting games. You start with little but rags. You explore, find or mine materials, craft weapons and shelter, and fight enemies. There is plenty of lore to discover, mainly as glowing notes left in long abandoned places. You can craft a grappling hook and a glider aid in traversal. You can fast travel once you unlock the destinations, usually requiring light traversal and puzzle solving. There is no hunger or thirst meter – you are an immortal flameborn – but enemies are balanced to the buffs given by food and drink.
Enshrouded‘s combat is very Souls-like, at least for melee characters. Timing, parrying and dodging are critical, although the creatures are generally more forgiving than anything from From Software. Non-melee characters are easier to play. Magic operates like a bow and arrow, with a staff firing magic spells instead of arrows. There is a stealth system, allowing you to snipe enemies from afar or backstab them up close.
The quests and crafting are standard for the genre. Quests progressively take you further afield and push the lore. You can rescue other NPC flameborn survivors, who provide unique crafting recipes and quests. Completing quests and acquiring new materials provide new crafting recipes. Most crafting requires crafting stations, which takes time and encourages you to head out into the world while you wait.
Enshrouded‘s building is voxel-based. You place floors, walls and ceilings individually, mixing and matching the materials to taste. Aesthetically, crude stone or thatch rooves are easy to mass produce but intentionally look uneven and primitive. You can discover better-looking materials, which require more and rarer ingredients. Mechanically, buildings provide shelter, which gives a stamina buff. The rescued NPCs also need shelter to produce more complex recipes.
Enshrouded‘s character advancement options follow a skill tree model. It covers the usual archetypes from a “sword and board” (melee weapon and shield) tank to a two-handed barbarian, a mage, a healer and a stealthy assassin. You gain XP from killing enemies, completing quests and gathering resources. You gain skill points when you level up or fell a shroud root, mushroom-like growths that create the shroud. Skills cost different amounts depending on their utility. You can also respec cheaply, making exploring different builds easy.
More generally, the quality and amount of content in Enshrouded is excellent. Apart from a few enemies getting stuck in the terrain and the occasional visual glitch, the game was flawless. The panoramic vistas are lovely, and the eerie green, blue and yellow lights shining through the shroud at night give it an alien, unworldly feel. Enshrouded‘s skill tree hints at something wonderfully complex and bristling with undiscovered synergies, like Path of Exile, in the final game.
Yet another beautiful panorama, looking down from an ancient stone ruin into an enshrouded valley
Critiquing an early access game is arguably unfair. After all, Enshrouded is unfinished and has a long development road ahead. However, there is enough to hint at what it could be and where problems lie.
Enshrouded‘s biggest problem is there is little extrinsic reward for exploration. The hand-crafted map is enormous and dotted with areas to explore. However, quests will take you to most of the essential places and get the critical rewards. The tidbits of lore are flavourful but disjointed. Flame shrines give unique rewards, but I accumulated all I needed early on. There are too few enemy types and each has fixed behaviour, potentially leading to repetitious and unchallenging combat. I was swimming in bows, staves and wands but, as a melee build, I found the first useful non-quest item in a chest sixty hours into the game. By the time I reached the Kindlewastes, the last accessible area, I had lost the exploration buzz. Walking down the next unexplored path felt like a chore. This issue is a “must fix”, particularly with so much of the map still unavailable.
Enshrouded‘s late-game crafting requires too much effort for too little reward.I was happily defeating level 30 creatures wearing low-20s gear. The only crafting you need is unlocking higher “flame levels”, which opens up previously inaccessible shrouded areas. While you keep unlocking new crafting recipes, higher-level crafting requires more tedium: more ingredients, longer crafting time, and heading back to lower-level regions. Inventory management becomes tiresome. Planting and harvesting crops is convenient, but doing so plant by plant gets repetitive quickly.
There is little incentive to build Enshrouded‘s beautiful bases. With dozens of materials available and the developer’s apparent effort, it screams out for an in-game need to build more. Unfortunately, once you make a sufficiently large structure, usually at the starting location using basic materials, you can fast travel back to it whenever needed. Replacing fast travel with a point-to-point mechanism or requiring crops to be planted in their native biome might help.
My modest abode at night, complete with garden.
Lastly, Enshrouded has a few balance issues. Melee characters are underpowered early on, and suitable upgrades are hard to find. Spell-casting and ranged characters are more powerful, easier to play and have more plentiful gear.
Enshrouded has the foundations for a great game. The quality and amount of content for an early access title are excellent and hint at a truly great game. The game has what it needs at the moment: solid foundations and exposure. Now Keen Games must refine Enshrouded‘s unique solution to the survival-crafting equation. As with pinnacles of the genre like Subnautica and Valheim, this will be a lengthy process. I hope Keen Games can take the time and resources to realise Enshrouded‘s potential.
Note: I originally wrote this before Frontier’s 31 January stream, which revealed surprisingly pleasant news. I considered rewriting this post for a few days. However, I decided to post it as is and then write an update later.
Frontier Developments PLC (or Frontier), the developer of Elite Dangerous (or Elite), recently published its interim 2024 financial reports. I have played Elite for thousands of hours. Considering the lacklustre Odyssey expansion launched two years ago, Elite‘s vague roadmap, and Frontier’s economic woes, I was interested in what this said about Elite‘s future.
Two slides from the financial report summarize Elite‘s situation well. The first is the “Cumulative Revenue” graph, shown below. This graph shows Elite favourably, earning the second-highest cumulative revenue of all Frontier’s Intellectual Properties (IPs).
However, the “Cumulative Cash Flow” graph tells a less rosy story. Elite has earned the least of Frontier’s big IPs. Elite‘s current (right-most) line is almost flat, meaning its income roughly matches its costs.
Given Frontier’s financial troubles, what does this mean for the future of Elite? The critical question is, “What are Frontier’s goals?” If Frontier wants to keep Elite as a “pet project”, they need not do anything different. Frontier can continue maintaining the game, likely entertaining the hardcore players for years. Frontier and Elite are synonymous, and Elite should continue as long as it does not lose money.
Unfortunately, Frontier needs its IPs to generate income. David Braben, Frontier’s founder and previous CEO, may love Elite. However, Frontier is a business, not a charity. Their investors, including the Chinese game giant Tencent, rue the declining share price. The relative success of Star Citizen, No Man’s Sky and similar IPs of the same age and genre must weigh heavily.
While, technically, it may have been the correct decision, Frontier’s decision not to support consoles likely had a significant financial impact. Frontier had invested heavily in Elite‘s console support before ceasing it without realizing any revenue. As shown in the Cumulative Revenue graph above, releases on other platforms boosted all IPs significantly.
Frontier may also be using Elite to hide costs. Frontier shares many development resources, such as the game engine, audio, marketing and community relations. Frontier may disproportionately attribute costs to Elite to bolster other IPs. However, given the lack of evidence and specifics, I am ignoring this.
Elite makes most of its money from the initial purchase or selling ARX, its cosmetics currency. Therefore, Frontier must attract new players or convince existing players to purchase cosmetics like ship paint jobs.
Unfortunately, the “Cumulative Cash Flow” graph indicates Frontier failed. Not in creating a good game – that is another discussion – but in creating a game that generates significant revenue.
One way to generate revenue is to improve gameplay. Frontier needs to identify new foci that engage players. For example, Eve Online wants to focus on “conflict, identity, and community” per Eve Online‘s 2024 roadmap. Elite needs beginner-friendly gameplay with less “grind” (repetition). However, gameplay changes are another discussion, as mentioned above.
Another way to generate revenue is through hype and promise. Star Citizen is a prime example. Players “pledge” thousands of dollars for new ships to be released years from now, if ever. Players happily shrug off poor performance and reliability. Elite has lost this over the years. Better marketing and community relations could help, but Frontier needs that inspiring vision or dream.
An alternate could be changing the business model. The game designers may have created the ideal Elite but for a different monetization model.
For example, Elite could go “free to play”. A free version may allow players access to specific star systems or ships, requiring a purchase to unlock the full game. However, this is unlikely. Elite has a famously steep learning curve and lacks a clear story or path, meaning a low conversion rate to paying customers.
Elite could shift to a monthly or yearly fee, like Eve Online. This shift would increase revenue but would likely drive most players away. Many players drift into and out of Elite, while others enjoy it precisely because it is free after the initial purchase.
Elite could alleviate the grind. For example, it could offer blocks of engineering materials for ARX or increase the materials gathered. Another possibility is buying Federation or Imperial rank to unlock ships and gain access to systems like Sol. Warframe and other “free to play” games have similar offerings. Many enjoy Elite but are time-poor or only enjoy some game loops. Unfortunately, this is getting close to “pay to win”. It can frustrate or alienate those who put in the effort.
Frontier could generate more revenue from a regular, smaller expansion model instead of the current “big bang” model. Eve Online and No Man’s Sky do this. The high development time and cost mean a misdirected or incomplete expansion, such as Odyssey, can endanger an IP’s financial viability. “Big bang” expansions are typically sold at a significant discount in regular sales.
Thinking more pessimistically, Frontier could sell Elite to another company. Daybreak Games, the owner of old MMORPGs like Everquest and Lord of the Rings Online, is one possible home. Pearl Abyss, the new owner of CCP games who make Eve Online, is another.
Selling Elite would give Frontier a much-needed cash injection. This injection could fund another creative management game or two, something Frontier has monetized more effectively.
However, a sale is unlikely. As stated above, Elite holds a special place at Frontier. It uses Frontier’s proprietary Cobra engine, unused outside of Frontier. Elite is still profitable, albeit marginally, so the price would be high. Thus, making a decent return on investment could be difficult.
Predictions are always tricky. We need more information on the development team’s size and capabilities, the quality of the code base, and Frontier’s plans. Frontier’s next stream on 31 January will also lay out plans for Elite, although this will likely be just a teaser for the upcoming update 18.
However, if I had to predict, little will happen beyond update 18 for 2024. If anything, Frontier will continue drip-feeding the irregular updates planned as part of Odyssey. Anything else that happens will be completing existing work.
This prediction may sound pessimistic. However, Frontier’s communications mention no new Elite content but plenty of content for other games. The recent restructuring has seen many senior members of the Elite team leave. Rebuilding and realigning afterwards will take time.
Reading between the lines, Frontier is moving Elite into the “too hard basket” for now. They want to focus on creative management simulations. They need revenue to correct their balance sheet and appease investors.
What would I like to see? I would love an inspiring and engaging “vision” for Elite. The hype around Odyssey drove huge player numbers and an undeniable anticipation. A focus on gameplay and marketing like that would be ideal. However, that requires creating a compelling vision, investing in marketing and community relations and commitment to see it through. These are improbable for a game in the “too hard basket”.
I would also love a “season” (like in Path of Exile or Diablo) or an “expedition” model (like in No Man’s Sky). These are separate versions of the game with interesting or exciting changes. Imagine Elite with a different economy, ships/modules, weapon balance or location/setting! Imagine replaying stories from Elite‘s lore!
Realistically, moving to smaller, cheaper, regular expansions will occur in 2025 or later. It deviates the least from current patterns, creates a constant revenue stream and reduces risk.
That said, it is remarkable that a game as old as Elite still makes money. Plenty of space games have come and gone over the years. Elite is still profitable and will be around for a while. However, in an industry dominated by hits, Elite may not be enough of a success to get the resources and attention it deserves.
The Single Player 