Summary
Ara: History Untoldaims to offer its players a variety of unique features, but those who play it are likely to care more about how to win than anything else. As it turns out,Ara: History Untold’s victory requirements are summed up in its unique Prestige system, which just so happens to be one of its best features.
Game Rant had the chance to chat with narrative and experience lead Gabriela Leskur, principal graphics architect Dan Baker, and executive producer in publishing atXbox Game StudiosMatt Turnbull aboutAra: History Untold’s Prestige system. In the interview, the devs disclosed plenty of details about the system and how it allows players the freedom to play their own way.
Ara: History Untold’s Prestige System Honors Diverse Playstyles
Ara: History Untold’s Prestige system is one of its most noteworthy features, simply due to its game-changing ability to provide players with an unprecedented level of freedom in a 4X game. At the end of the day,Ara’s Prestige system is how players win the game, and it functions similarly to the Victory Points system in theSettlers of Catanboard game. When asked about the Prestige system inAra: History Untold, Leskur replied,
I think something really interesting aboutAra’s Prestige system is that it doesn’t force players into one playstyle. you may gain Prestige in a wide variety of domains, and this is reflective of what we often see of nations that have stood the test of time in the real world. They might have been known in one era for one certain type of feat, and in the future, they grew to a new type of prestige, a new type of world renown.
Ara: History Untold’s Prestige system thus opens up the game in a variety of ways for players, with its diverse offering of playstyles likely to even result in diverse players all the same. More hardcore players might prefer to winAra: History Untoldthrough military conquest, whereas casual players might lean more toward technological advancement or world exploration. It’s fairly typical for4X gamesto be too limited to appeal to a variety of players, which makesAra’s Prestige system one of its most defining features. On that thought, Baker added,
One of the problems that can happen with a 4X game is that you can end up in a trap where you’re playing the game and all of a sudden you get blindsided because you lost a battle that you didn’t know was happening or everybody voted against you because they don’t like that your skin is green. We wanted to avoid those scenarios where there’s a binary condition.
Binary conditions in 4X games are infamous for holding players back, andAra’s Prestige systemreduces those limits by offering players a multitude of possible paths to take.Ara’s Prestige system has several categories — Military, Commerce, Government, Religion, Culture, Science, Industry, and Impact — each with its own focus. Culture, for instance, is about creating masterpieces of art and literature, while Science is about researching technologies. The flexibility of the system is fully realized when a player can, for example, win the game by amassing more wealth than the person who has conquered other nations through military force. Finalizing the developer’s sentiment on the freedom offered byAra’s Prestige system, Turnbull concluded,
The act structure combined with the diversity of the leader traits means that even though you’re playing one leader and one nation from the beginning of the game to the end, your strategy can still change, you may still explore the Prestige system, still have fun changing up what you’re doing as you go and explore different ways to play.
Ara: History Untoldis full of interesting features, but its Prestige system stands out among the rest. It seems players of many different playstyles should be able to enjoy whatArahas to offer.
Ara: History Untold
WHERE TO PLAY
Build a nation and lead your people throughout history to the pinnacles of human achievement as you explore new lands, develop arts and culture, conduct diplomacy, and go head-to-head with your rivals to prove you are the greatest ruler ever known. It’s Your World Now.Ara: History Untold is an evolution in historical grand strategy, featuring beloved classic PC strategy mechanics alongside innovative gameplay like a national crafting economy, true simultaneous turn resolution, a non-linear technology tree, and cloud-backed synchronous/asynchronous multiplayer - all with an expansive and vibrant presentation where you may zoom out from surveying the very edges of your empire all the way down to your citizens living their daily lives. In Ara, there are no pre-set paths to victory, leading to endless possibilities. Your choices will define the world you create, your experience, and your legacy.Explore an Immersive Living World:Explore a dynamic living world filled with life and charm across sweeping landscapes ranging from tropical jungles to sand-swept deserts as you discover the resources you need to develop your nation. Witness the world come to life in vivid, realistic detail as citizens move throughout the world and react dynamically to times of health and sickness, war and peace, wealth and despair with unique biomes, cultures, and eras representing the diversity of the human experience
