Publisher Microids and the developers from Tower Five studio are working on a photorealistic RTS based on the novel by Bernard Werber “Ants”, released in 1991. In Empire of the Ants, scheduled to arrive on PC, PS5 & Xbox Series on November 7th, you will get to play as #103,683, the Ant Savior that sets out to help the anthill in the hour of need.
However, it is more than an RTS, the developers have prepared an entire microscopic immersive journey. Players are in for a mixture of exploration, strategy, combat skills and even seeking alliances with local wildlife to protect the colony and ensure its survival at any cost.
Having spent a few hours trying the game for myself, I can confidently say one thing: it is a very interesting undertaking. Starting with simple missions that will have you fighting for the exits of the anthill, and going all the way to large wars to preserve your colony from the forest threats.
Every mission will present you with limited resources that you will need to use wisely. It is up to you to build troops, upgrade anthill, create new nests, and tackle various objectives. As #103,683, you will get to live through the seasons change, different weather conditions that will have their impact on the anthill, and impressive invasions from other colonies.
The game is created using Unreal Engine 5, which imposes certain requirements. Empire of the Ants is extremely demanding on hardware, good equipment is a must for having a comfortable pastime. The recommended system specs of the project indicate NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800 for GPU, as well as at least 16 GB of RAM. For playing with minimal settings, you’d need a GTX 1060 or RX 580.
However, it’s quite worth it. Just exploring the world calmly will bring you a lot of amazing emotions. Watching such photorealistic landscapes with picturesque locations captivated me for a long time. Weather conditions, the animations of movement all around you, change of seasons, day and night cycles… All of these things are done at the highest level.
During the combat, you will be able to observe the battles of your ant troops. Additionally, the collection of resources, life of nests, and combat actions themselves will prove to be a pleasant highlight to the bigger world outside the colony.
The campaign adopts an interesting style as well. The complexity of the missions and battles increases gradually. The developers have promised such a difficulty curve, and they have kept to their word, which I could see for myself over a few hours in the game. There are no wild jumps in difficulty that would become a stopping point for players.
However, there are a few things that the game is currently sorely missing. One of those is a competent tutorial. Sure, you can learn the controls from the settings, and the subtler aspects will be explained over the first few missions, but it certainly adds to the overall enjoyment of the game.
Once you get used to the controls and the gameplay, Empire of the Ants turns into a truly enjoyable experience. Even something as simple as leading the snail to the nests proves to be an interesting experience. The game is not filled with tedium, on the other hand, you very quickly delve into the life of a colony, its needs and the requirements for its continued existence.
Between missions, you can also explore the open world, which is quite vast and lively. The ants perform their duties, obtain food, build and protect the colony. Butterflies flutter about, all sorts of bugs crawl around as well. There are also objects from the world of man, the study of which can be an entire adventure due to your own microscopic size.
The game presents an interesting view of the world from the point of the ants. The developers have also expressed their desire to implement the multiplayer, which will make Empire of the Ants even more interesting.
