PARIS, Feb 10 — French studio Amplitude wants to take us behind the scenes on its new contribution to historical civiliation games, Humankind.
The Parisian studio is returning to the 4X genre — a group of empire-building strategies so-called due to a focus on exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination, per player approach.
Its previous entries to the genre, Endless Legend and Endless Space 1 and 2, were framed within sci-fi and fantasy settings; Humankind takes in over 10,000 years of human history.
“Now we feel that we are ready to tackle Humankind,”
co-founder and creative director Romain de Waubert says in a first Developer’s Diary video about the game.
“The idea is that we give the player these historically accurate bricks, and they go build whatever story they want to,” said Jeff Spock, another studio co-founder and also the game’s narrative director.
He cited the intelligence and talent of studio staff plus their collaboration with historians in a search for accuracy as key components of the Humankind development process, framing the finished project as a quest to make “the most complete, accessible, beautiful historical strategy game.”
The game’s wide historical sweep places it alongside the influential Civilisation series in terms of scale and content, and Amplitude touches upon a number of aspects it hopes will set Humankind apart.
The studio is known for its innovative approach to community engagement, thanks to its Games2Gether programme in which fans are invited to provide feedback and celebrate the studio’s successes, Communication Manager Natacha Concordel emphasising the studio’s desire to make “something we hope that they’ll be proud of.”
One of the game’s central themes revolves around humanity’s progression as a whole, as ideas and technologies have passed between cultures and been modified by them.
“We’ve got all these different cultures that have emerged throughout history that have taught each other things, that have learnt from each other, that have combined together to form other things,” said senior game designer William Dyce; the game offers “the “ability to create your own civilisation out of 60 different [historical] cultures,” De Waubert concluded.
Humankind is the first new franchise from Amplitude since becoming part of Sega in 2016.
It’s been announced for release on Mac and PC, just as with the rest of the studio’s back catalog, and is aiming to debut at some point in 2020.
One previous Ampligame released on other platforms: 2013’s Endless Space spin-off Dungeon of the Endless, which made it to iOS in 2015 and Xbox One in 2016, with PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch editions announced in 2019 and currently awaiting a release date. — AFP-Relaxnews
