Great read!
- Differentiating Ara from Sid Meier's Civilization
"The fact that you have to constantly reevaluate and like, pay attention to each turn, because things might not go the way you thought," she says. "You don't have access to that prior turn knowledge of being able to watch Player A make his turn before you and then 'Oh, I can just do whatever I want, because he had to go before me.'"
Dorian Newcomb, art director on Ara: History Untold, points to how the studio is trying to build a game with a bigger focus on its map and economy, instead of primarily being a tactical battle experience."
- Making Grand Strategy accessible
"Everything we've been doing in tech, and art, and design, and UI especially, how do we make sure all those players who are approaching this from a new standpoint, can they play? Can they do something that is meaningful? Can they reach a goal? Can they feel like they accomplish something, even on their very first playthrough?"
"You can have a great game. But if people don't see it early and can't make choices and get excited, they'll fall off and they'll stop playing," adds Newcomb. "There's always the easier game to play. There's always the distraction over here. But we really want to commit to making sure that when players play for the first time they get it. They enjoy it and we give them the ability to own the choices they're making and understand what they're doing."
- Watching turn-based happen in real-time
Oxide Games has a system that allows players to watch that spectacle unfold on the ground or take a more aloof approach, simply watching the numbers and results.
"When I take my turn, and a battle occurs, I can then see a preview of that battle. Or I can click on that and see actually what happened," explains Newcomb. "So if I had a stack of three or four units made up of different formations, and I'm fighting another stack, I'll see all them fighting in the battlefield, we'll strip away some of the buildings, we'll zoom in a lot closer, and you'll see, like, hundreds of little folks fighting."
Newcomb reiterates that this feature is entirely optional, and the game can be played without ever using it, as the team is well aware many strategy players just want to get through battles as quickly as possible, especially the longer a game goes on."
(I like this! It can make battles feel more epic and cinematic)
- Cutting edge tech
Ara: History Untold is a good-looking game, and while the team isn't ready to share recommended specs that players should have, it's clear that a fair amount of effort is going into making it graphically beautiful while also ensuring it runs well.
Dan Baker, chief graphics architect at Oxide Games, notes that even in the team's early days, Oxide Games was working with Microsoft in order to take advantage of DirectX12 for Ashes of the Singularity. This early work ended up being the "origin story" for Ara: History Untold, as the team began talking to Xbox Game Studios Publishing. Ara: History Untold builds on that experience, taking advantage of DirectX12's feature set.
"It's really disappointing to see a lot of games and their technology not being able to use what a PC can do," Baker says. "So in terms of advantages, we spent a lot of time actually making sure that we're going to be able to use the PCs that people have, in a really efficient way."
Another huge part of the engine work goes back to simultaneous turns, which means that players shouldn't be sitting around waiting for the AI to finish moving. (THANK GOD!!!!)
- Xbox console port and post-launch support?
Right now, the team at Oxide Games is focused on the upcoming launch of Ara: History Untold on Windows PC. While there's no specifics that can be confirmed regarding a DLC or expansions, it looks like the team is in it for the long haul to support the game.
"I know, as they should be, these folks are focused on getting to a great launch," says Brian Stone, product owner at Xbox Game Studios Publishing. "But I can confirm that we have a long partnership with Oxide that extends well beyond launch and a commitment to support the game well past launch."
With Gears Tactics, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and most recently Age of Empires 4, Microsoft has a well-established history of building games in specific genres for PC first, before introducing a console port later on. The team again holds off on confirming anything specific, but an Xbox Series X|S port doesn't seem impossible for Ara: History Untold.
"We're focused on making a great PC game. Obviously, it's in my mind that our can be great on other platforms as well," Stone says. "When we get to that, we will do the work to make sure that wherever else it lands, that Oxide's given the time to make sure that [with] the UI and any other adjustments that we want to make, we make sure that it's a great experience on other endpoints."
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