PC User Reviews

It isn't that bad, but after having experienced Sid Mier's Civilization, there's no going back. Ara was bold, and I really appreciate that the copycat base design was taken into another direction, but the changed mechanics and different/new editions though unique more so dragged the game down. IMO, to me it is just a lower quality civ. I really love the art style that they adapted like Civ had for the old console games whatever it was called, but there just doesnt feel like much to do in this game vs Civ. It also seems a bit more complicated than civ as there are more resources and many many building types to shuffle, but this could very well be because Im a noob. Anyways I got bored after trying it for an hour, as again, if I play this type of game I rather just play Civ.

This was my first time playing a 4X turn-based game, and what a great introduction to the genre! Of course, this game may not appeal to every type of player due to the amount of micromanagement it requires. The graphics are decent, the sound effects are cool, and most importantly, the gameplay is satisfying in itself. There are a few things that need to be improved. The good news is that the game is still receiving updates and DLCs. Therefore, we can expect improvements to its UI, core mechanics, and the addition of new content, such as new maps, nation leaders, and more. You will need patience—this is not a 40-minute match kind of game. Build strategically, grow steadily, conquer fiercely. If you enjoy strategy games, resource management, crafting, and technology research, among other mechanics, you’ll love it. Give it a try.

4/10 because of the mid-to-end game mechanics. I wonder how this game got approved at Xbox. They didn't play it. Eventually, you reach the city cap in the early game. You cannot do much about it. There's no reason to conquer, to expand, to build, or to wage war anymore because you've reached the city cap already. Your "empire" then stalls around the early Middle Ages. From there, you'll skip all turns until the end of the game. Also, the AI nations change their attitude for no reason, but once you are strong and advanced, you simply sign trade and/or research agreements -- and they do not matter anymore. I thought that Humankind was a low point in 4X gameplay, but I'm afraid that this game does not understand what the 4X stands for. And, oh, micromanagement hell. It gets worse the further into the future you go.

Lots of "one more turn" energy. I got pulled in for literally the entire Saturday and couldn't stop (17h on clock after 1 day...). Not for everyone though, you must enjoy micromanging your cities amd building supply chains. Not quite a Civ clone, I can see some similiarities with games like Anno. 4 X-es: Exploration is pretty decent. Expansion is good. Exploitation is the meat of the game - really addicting. Extermination (war) is meh. Building the industry, setting up all chains so tha they are balanced - this is where the meat of the game's at. UI could be a bit better, but it's not bad. Difficulty is hard to get right - you must be close to the top to not get wiped out after an Era ends, but If you are too high it appears too easy. No rubberbanding mechanic that I've seen yet, snowballing may be a problem. Nice graphics, lots of eyecandy, make sure you don't go too high or you will fry your machine. No technical problems during gameplay, no performance issues. In the first major, free patch the devs address pretty much all of the UX issues I had with the game, and are proceeding with many updates that address player feedback and introduce new functionalities. The game has an incredibly tight core, and seems to be in great hands. Very optimistic about its future.

ARA: History Untold offers a deep and exciting strategy experience, with a mix of classic and innovative mechanics. If you're looking for a game that challenges you to think, allows you to rewrite history, and offers hours of fun, this one is for you!

Ara ne révolutionne pas le style 4x, mais il a beaucoup d'atout. Le 1er son accessibilité qui est vraiment parfaite. on rentre vite et facilement, meme pour les joueurs moins habitué au 4x. Les graphique sont trais beau et rendre le jeux agréable à suivre. les partie ne sont pas interminable et la durée de vie est **** très belle surprise qui plus est proposé sur le game pass. Il est de la marge de progression pour de futur versions mais vraiment l'un de mes 4x préféré en ce moment.

I went into this game with very little experience in these styles of games. Closest being a small amount of Age of empires. The game does a lot of things I thought were good. But starting off with what I didn't like so this finishes on a positive. I found the games tutorial was a poorly explained barrage of text dumps. Leading me to click things without knowing why. I have played a lot of video games, so I was figuring things out after so long on my own. But I can see this putting people off. Age of Empires campaign takes a narrative story approach for it's tutorial, slowly introducing things to the player. Ara would benefit from something like this. My next issue was the UI. So many things just annoyed me with it. Like when you apply buffs to your resource generators,all the icons are the same plus icon (+), but each selection of items inside the menu is different. Why not have different icons for each one? Even if it's just different colours corresponding to different sets of items. Another weird thing is when your choose stuff, you sometimes have to close a menu to click the next menu, despite it being a side menu. Can it not just replace the menu itself? That just feels a bit obvious to me. Another issue is performance. There is no DLSS or FSR so you can't use these to help. It's a turn based game so it's not gonna impact your skill. It's just annoying in the later game when its running terribly. Please add FSR or something to take some strain off the GPU? It's open source so it doesn't cost any money to add this. Some resource supplies felt a bit unusual or confusing. Like when you trade, why do they not ask you for anything in return? It's not trading, it's just a free stream of gifts. Also I think manufacturing should require some resources. Rather then a lot of the time it just speeding it up. Even if it's just gold to simulate buying the resources you don't have. My last issue is auto repeat idle troops. So you don't have to keep waiting and fortifying. Let me automatically wait for multiple turns in a row please? I enjoyed the battling. I found that was pretty cool. It's awesome how each battle and war is even named. Also certain things like creating your own religion. The game also has so many neat ideas that if they were further fleshed out could really be amazing. I was in a war with another country. Then at one point they proposed we put our differences aside and work together, because another country was clearly getting to ambitious. However this doesn't check if you are at wa, so you remain in one despite accepting the offer?? This would be great if it ended the war and boosted your respect with them. You will come across so many decisions that I think should be more impactful. Cos 90% of the time you're better off just accepting due to the lack of negative effects. Maybe change this so there are bigger stakes. The animations in this game are really cool. It makes the world feel so much more alive. The game is highly addictive. With so many things to constantly interact with, you constantly want to work towards stuff. Even if you haven't played many strategy games, I recommend giving Ara a go. If you stick through the tutorial and continue to work things out then you will be rewarded with game you can sink hours into. You won't even realize where the time went.

El juego al principio es un lio pero una vez aprendes está bastante entretenido y es que se te pasan las horas volando cuando lo juegas. Si que hay algunas cosillas muy confusas o turnos que apenas haces nada, pero en general la idea bastante buena y juego bastante resultón.

I do appreciate the detailed supply chain and I liked the effort that has gone into making it play more like a wargame from the 80s. The game's core, a city simulator of production chains where outputs become the inputs for a greater range of products over time is interesting. It's not innovative and even though it's the central core of the game's design - it wasn't applied to all the improvements that you build. The purported living world is a satisfying string of visual animations but the 'world' is not dynamic or responsive to the actions taken by the player. Almost all of the gameplay except military conquest is passive micro-management. Trading between players isn't a barter system it's a 'free' production over time of items one player has in their inventory for another - this is the antithesis of the game's core design. Resources are unlimited and the endless bounty of the colonizer extraction approach isn't challenged at any point. Minor factions and AI players do trigger events that are based in actual historical events but lack 'personality' in that once you've experienced the small pool of events the game launched with you realize the summation of these in-game entities effects are popup events ... these popup events allow you the player to set the tone for the relationship. In a multiplayer games you don't have these and you can if you have voice over applications roleplay or negotiate things and that could provide satisfaction but unfortunately the in-game diplomatic actions are simplistic and unoriginal. As for aesthetic the music does eventually take on a solid presence in the game but visually aside from the 'living world' experience the games visuals seem almost archaic and to my view are mostly static considering the hype around the living world and other triumphs shown off. The map and the UI are quite busy with several components potentially disguising others - other units and their icons for example can be hidden behind your building or units icons. The details of my disappointment could include a longer list and in some places maybe a bullet point of potential gaffs and errors. Near launch they changed one small Quality of Life name from "Aesthetics" to Security - but this creates some odd bonuses in the game where they kind of make sense once you realize that the developers are still working on the game. In a very real sense they may still be working on the entire game. The publishers worked with the developers to plan out a year of continued funding. So they do plan to work on the game for at least a year after launch but this creates a premise for a different question. The question of when, or even if, the game will be finished and ready for launch. Honestly this game feels like a huge success for their marketing team. Because I was typing that up to joke about the game still being 'in the works' but it's not a joke, not really. It's not a finished project. It seems like it's got more unfinished elements than finished ones.

A masterpiece for strategy gaming. The only game this year that i come to play each time. I spend more than 50h on it.

Хорошая 4х стратегия. При этом ничего сверхуникального в ней нет. Но если вы любите циву и она вам надоела - пробуйте Ару.

Its ok for what it wants to be. Strong points are the crafting system where its a bit like the Anno games, but not as punishing if you get into the red with production. So its really satisfying when you start to snowball your economy. And its not that complicated, with the biggest chains being maybe two or three resources deep and usually very forgiving where you can supply entire cities of forges for example with only two or three well equiped iron mines. I often forget to upgrade the production items outside of my main city, but thats on me for ignoring most of the pop-ups. Everything else though is very lacking. War is a joke, where everything besides annihalation wars are on a timer and when that one runs out every fight and siege just stops. Or the enemy surrenders and you cant do anything against that, the fighting also just stops. You cannot upgrade your units and you have to disband them everytime you unlock something new. Enemies can repair their destroyed walls while you army is fighting their army inside the walls, and if they repair them in time you have to destroy them again for a couple rounds. Its all very ankward. Also for a Anno/Civ type of game to have no "One more round" button at the end is really weird. All in all, its okay. Down the line if it doesnt get abandoned and work on its mechanics a bit more, it could turn out good. But for the moment right now, with its awful performance, janky war mechanics and really messy UI for cities especially in the late game, it gets frustrating really fast.

If you love Victoria 3 and civilization, then this is the game for you. It’s unique in its own take of the civilization genre, and thrives in its own brilliance. However, optimization and some core mechanics like nukes or advanced diplomatic features let down this game’s potential. Not to mention the horrible text and UI, it can be a game killer if your anything like me. A year of updates would make this game easily a 9/10, so for anyone wondering if you should get this game, wait until a sale. By then it will be worth playing.

I'm sure everyone wants a comparison to Civilization. If you just look at the pictures, you can get the impression that it is an identical game and is only in a newer graphic coat. Speaking for myself, I can say that the game really impressed me on the strategy side, thanks to the exploration where you can really freely set your path. City creation, building and upgrading is very similar, but there is a huge emphasis on resources and their processing. It smacks a little of, say, ANNO 1800, where the intertwined manufacturing processes are a highlight of the game. The warfare on the hex system is identical and probably not much new can be invented on it, but even here we can find new mechanics (unit deployment) that make the game special. Diplomacy strikes me as similar and generally uninteresting in both games. The advantage for quite a few people is that the game is on Xbox Game Pass, so they can make up their minds right away, after hitting the install button. I'd be happy for your impressions and insights. ****

Pro - Looks great. Map generator interesting. Some nice departures from 5X norms and new features. Multi-turn battles are fun. Still better than Humankind. Negative - Lacklustre diplomacy. Religion is confusing at best. Awful UI. Awful micromanagement. Tooltips require scrolling...seriously? Runs worse on 7800XT/5800X3D than Space Marine 2.

Très bonne première pour Ara !!! Le jeu plaira à ceux qui aiment la complexité et la cohérence du développement de de votre civilisation. Bien sur le jeu a besoin de patch et des retouches sur notamment la diplomatie, mais la base est très bonne ;)

Недоцивилизация. Механика вся точь в точь, как там, но менее продуманная. Племена вот есть, но толку от их уважения нету. Опции политики скудные. Есть интересные моменты с "актами" (меняются резко правила в одиночном режиме), но подоплёка не продумана. Очевидный плюс: много сторон на большой карте. 36 стран без модов могут сражаться.

how can it be that a game that is released save game does not work total failure for developers.I wasted 5 hours from my life dont recommend at all

another game tries to copy civ and falls flat on it's face. -there's a turn limit - there is a build city limit - there is an army limit - you can't upgrade units - you can't move units out of an army or upgrade or change them - if you forget to research siege units you can't destroy walls such a pity it was fun to play at first

I've been playing Civ games since the original Civ1 all those years ago. Ara clearly shows its roots in those games with a VERY similar structure and mechanics, and anyone who have played Civ before will feel immediately at home. The game feels like it was made by fans who had been frustrated that Civ had made a few missteps and decided to step in themselves and fix it. I love the environments (especially the tile space defined by geography) and most of the systems are great. Crafting was a bit too much like hard work for me, but I imagine that I'll get used to that too. Quick disclaimer - this is all based off of 1 game on single player.

I hate how people who prefer a more action-oriented game, ruin a game with bad ratings. This is a large brain game, a lot is going on and it is beautiful and extremely well crafted. I cannot wait for them to get going, update the military aspect, and add more flavor to the game. If you actually enjoy managing a supply chain and nurturing a population so it exponentially grows into a powerhouse, then this game is for you

More than just a mix of Civ-like and grand strategy , with a dash of city builder, Ara: History Untold is very much its own thing. It brings a number of innovations to the turn based 4X genre, like irregular regions and zones instead of tiles, fully simultaneous turns, and large scale multiplayer for up to 36 players. The crafting system is enjoyable, but may be too much work for some players. I recommend giving it a chance though, or just wait a few weeks for UI improvements to streamline it a bit. Ara is already a great game, which will be refined and expanded over the coming year, as Xbox had already pre-budgeted Oxide to continue working on it for year after launch.

A new modern take on the strategy genre instead of doing the same old civ clone. great music.

It's a mishmash of Anno and Millenia, with perhaps a little tiny bit of Civ/Humankind thrown in. I love the change of pace from the usual 4x and it's a wondrous creation. I haven't made it past the early middle age yet as I keep restarting as I learn the ropes. You'll spend a lot of time figuring out whether to rush plows to improve your farms, horde tools and ropes for early triumphs (wonders), and then it just unravels from there. Weavers, apothecaries, blacksmiths, inns, butchers. There is an absolute myriad of goods and resources that all have their own effects. Combat is somewhat simple and feels a bit like endless space 2 auto-resolve combat with formations, but it serves its purpose. I also feel that the sheer number of crafting buildings and projects make it a little bit heavy on micromanagement, even for me, but it's a small complaint for a game clearly crafted with a lot of love.

Ara is not a normal civ. It's more like a micro-managed city builder where instead of controlling a city, remember the Caesar series, we manage an empire. Here the important thing is not wars or religion, which have a certain importance, but rather that the game is won by prestige achieved by the well-being of citizens by supplying their pyramid of needs. It is true that war and religion influence but they play a secondary role. It is a 4X, but victory is better achieved by the pen than by the sword. I repeat, it is not a civ. His style is a mix of Humankind with Anno management. Positive point, anyone who likes these games of numbers and opening and closing tabs will be in their element. Negative point, depending on how you look at it, the very steep learning curve. I like difficult games so I give it a nine.