4X games are time sinks that know no bounds. In the warm company of MMOs, the genre (referred to by way of its core mechanics of eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) thrives in giving the player total control of their fate, and the fate of thousands of citizens. But with total control comes total responsibility, and that can be a major turn off for a lot of prospective players. Dawn of Andromeda ventures to fix that with a more accessible foundation, but it goes a bit too far in that endeavour.
Before you even get into it, you’ll probably notice Dawn of Andromeda‘s woefully undercooked options menu. There are barely any options to speak of (basically resolution, quality, V-Sync), and the tutorial plays it pretty fast and loose, offering up brief one-page summaries of each concept after clicking on them. That’s mostly because you don’t need dictionary-size recaps, as every facet of Dawn of Andromeda can be picked up in the span of a few minutes.
The UI is functional and cleaner than a lot of other indie 4X games that I’ve played. That said, moving the camera around with right click would be greatly appreciated, as you basically only need the mouse to play (control groups mainly came up late game or when I was engaged in warfare). The ability to save anywhere and pause at any time just adds to its chill.
In some ways that’s actually a bonus for folks who aren’t accustomed to the deep rabbit holes that 4X titles usually delve into. In fact, when starting up a game you can choose an “era” to start from including “The Stars and Beyond” (a small galaxy before the first great war of Andromeda with just two parties), all the way up to “A New Dawn,” when players are tasked with colonizing a new galaxy with up to six starting players. All eight chapters have their own bits of fluff and lore to accompany it, but that’s about as far as the narrative really goes. If you’re so inclined there’s also a custom sandbox option.
“Dawn of Andromeda is a competent strategy game that walks the walk, but it failed to really connect with me on several levels.”
The idea of the Terran (Humans, duh) versus Sython (aliens, duh) conflict is about as shallow as you’d expect. While many similar games are rife with myriad races to theorycraft both inside and outside the confines of mechanics, the few in Dawn of Andromeda aren’t all that worth exploring. There are flashes of nuance when the game refers to Terrans as creatures of “conquest,” and the Sython as “silver-tongued,” but we don’t really get to explore those ideas.
Even when you add more alien races like the Drekkos (they’re even more thirsty for conquest than Terrans), and the Kalzur (isolationists) their stories mostly play out on the character select screen.
In-game, everything happens as a quick pop-up or an “if then” statement. The propensity for juicy drama, interesting relationships, or character development just isn’t there, even on a tertiary level (which many a 4X has pulled off). Instead you’ll usually get terms from other factions served to you in what looks like a cooked math equation, and in turn you’ll offer counter terms then be on your way.
“The UI is functional and cleaner than a lot of other indie 4X games that I’ve played.”
But that sort of thing isn’t everything I need from a strategy title, and Dawn of Andromeda makes up for its lack of spectacle in other ways. For one, it’s a joy to start a brand new game and feel the rush of building a fresh fleet. Research boils down to a technology tree, projects, and the collection of artifacts, which encourages exploration. There’s also some Sim City-esque citizen management like taxes and other leader duties to sift through, including policy changes that somewhat influence how other civilizations perceive you.
You can click tick boxes like legalizing slavery, which lowers approval ratings but improves the economy—led by a dichotomy of democratic and authoritarian policies. Scandals can randomly rock your political party like disasters, factions can pop up and declare all out war, and allies will randomly rush to your aid when you didn’t realize you had any. All of the flair of a 4X game is there.
Dawn of Andromeda is a competent strategy game that walks the walk, but it failed to really connect with me on several levels. Creating an entire galaxy from scratch is no easy feat, but this world feels a little more sterile than it should.
