I may be telling on myself a little bit, but before I played Nexus 5X, I didn’t even know there were four Xs let alone a whole genre of them. Up until now, I was only aware of three Xs, but that’s not something we can talk about in polite company. Like I’ve said in the past, my early experience with strategy games was fairly limited, and despite enjoying them, it’s not a genre I delve into very often.
But I was excited to give Nexus 5X a try because I’m a big supporter of board-game-style video games. I love the idea of having all the depth and complexity of your average tabletop game but without all the mess and prep and that overrated physicality. After only a short while of playing, I was reminded why I enjoy strategy games so much—Nexus 5X is a compelling, deep and challenging game streamlined to be quick and exciting.
It’s a fairly straightforward premise—players choose a Leader from one of 11 different factions and compete against two to eight opponents for galactic supremacy. However, it’s not as straightforward as Risk in space, as players win by earning 100 points of influence on the Galactic Council. In order to do that, players will not only need to play effectively but meet certain conditions convened by the Council every seven turns.
While Nexus 5X does have a story mode, it’s more a smaller, objective-based version of the main game that provides some insight and lore about the various factions. Actually, the story mode feels like a deeper extension of the game’s tutorial, which is incredibly helpful because, as anyone who has that one friend who’s REALLY into board games can attest, there’s a lot to digest when sitting down to this game. On top of that, players can access in-game suggestions to help them make better decisions while playing.
“Nexus 5X is a compelling, deep and challenging game streamlined to be quick and exciting.”
That isn’t to suggest the game is completely unapproachable. I was a bit anxious when I first started playing because it seemed like there was going to be way too much to unpack and remember. But thanks to the way the game has been optimized for quick, roughly one-hour play sessions, it’s incredibly easy to understand but very difficult to master. At a basic level, players need to follow the four Xs: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate, but there’s a lot of nuance to how the game is played.
Every turn, players have a certain amount of Support, which determines how many actions they can make—since every action requires different degrees of Support. Support can come from conquering planets, but building and supporting planets in your domain can also benefit you.
Furthermore, every turn, players get three Edicts they can enact to give them a competitive edge. This can range from “Construction,” which allows players to bolster occupied planets for bonuses; “Diplomacy,” where players can reach out to their rivals and form pacts; or my personal favourite, “Espionage,” where players can plant spies on rival planets in order to gain technology, resources, or even overthrow the government.
Every faction plays a little differently, so knowing how to optimize your faction’s various special edicts—along with your Leader’s Ultimate Edict—can really turn the tide in your favour. Since influence doesn’t always equate to raw strength, playing effectively also means you’ll gain more votes for turn conditions when the council convenes every seven turns, so the game really compels you to consider the long game while keeping you on your toes.
I found myself enjoying the Yondar Crusaders—a group of holy warriors that spread their influence across the galaxy. The first time, I tried to play the game as if it were Risk, conquering as many planets as I could and trying to build the strongest army. Suffice it to say, I didn’t even get close to winning, finishing dead last. However, the next time around, I considered more carefully how my faction played, and rather than spreading out too far, I managed a small group of planets, taking the Nexus—the central planet that awards big points to whoever is controlling it every Council Meeting—and using my faction’s Culture edict to spread my ways as far across the galaxy as I could.
Since every planet with my culture gave me bonuses in arms, research, and Glory—the Yondar Crusaders’ special currency—I was able to gain more Support from my small cluster, making precise, supporting decisions rather than big military strokes. When a rival faction did decide to declare war on me, it was already too late, as my influence on the Galactic Council was too high and I had won the game.
It’s an incredibly fun experience that really does play into the “one more game” mentality. Since Nexus 5X designed its games to be roughly an hour in length, no game ever feels like a slog—unlike other strategy games that can just get exhausting by the end and make you wanna put it down for a week.
However, Nexus 5X isn’t a completely perfect experience. While the game looks great, utilizing a simple aesthetic that does a lot with a little and fleshes out its world with unique and interesting character profiles and Edict icons, I came across some weird visual glitches while reviewing it. It seems like, by default, a lot of character information screens cut off across the screen, so it’s incredibly hard to get all the information when selecting a character.
I don’t know if it’s a resolution glitch since my laptop is 3000×2000, but even when set to that resolution in the game, the error persists. Furthermore, if you decide to change the resolution, you’ll need to reboot the game, as setting it to 1920×1080 caused all the expanded Edict screens to fly into the top corner of my screen and get completely cut off.
In the audio department, like the visuals, Nexus 5X does a lot with a little, utilizing an ethereal, sci-fi ambiance that adds a lot to the game’s vibe of intergalactic political domination. There really isn’t much more to say since the game doesn’t really overdo it with the sounds, and it doesn’t need to. This is a game of high-stakes politics, and bombarding the player with sci-fi sound effects would completely kill the mood.
Nexus 5X definitely surprised me. I thought it was going to be too much, to the point of being overwhelming and not only did it perfectly ease me into an incredibly robust experience, but it kept me coming back for more. If you’re a fan of the 4X genre, you’re definitely going to find something you like here.
