Each phase has a weapon type that does more damage if used during this stage. Instead, every combat sequence is broken down into three stages, long range, medium range, and melee. Unlike, say, Homeworld, you don’t control your units directly, maneuvering them into the best position and keeping them close to their support ships, etc.

In fact, I’ve never played a combat system like Endless Space‘s in a video game before.

One of my favorite parts so far is, perhaps unsurprisingly, combat, and eventually you’re more than likely going to have to do it. You’ll also start with a scout ship and a colony ship to begin dipping your toe in the waters of exploration with, and you can travel along space lines from system to system. Once you load a galaxy, you start with a base system that contains a few planets, but only one of which is colonized. You can also set the difficulty and game speed and how many different empires there are in your galaxy. The art is well done and the aesthetics are very nice. Each race has its own win conditions as well, which mixes things up nicely for replayability. We’ve got our humans (United Empire), the amazing scientists in the Siphon race, the proud, warrior-like people called the Hissho, a tyranid race called Cravers who want nothing but to feed and can’t ever be at peace, and the Horatio who are clones of one very, very vain man. Currently there are five races in the game to choose from, but more are coming. You’re given quite a range of options that decide what shape the galaxy you play in is (leading to different pathway options between systems) as well as the size, age, and amount of races in your galaxy. I could stare at them for hours (and I did). Right from the beginning, the game looks clean, futuristic and simply amazing. Since we’re on the topic of the game’s feeling, let’s dive in deeper. Endless Space has only been available for a few days, so while it’s still too early to see how it works out in the end, I can say that I’m confident in the team to make a game that feels right. The idea is to allow players to help shape the content as it’s being created. You owe it to yourself to try this out if you’re a fan of the genre, and soon.Įndless Space is using an interesting method of development, where you can give direct feedback on specific items such as art, or gameplay, or what have you via polls. Endless Space is still in alpha testing, but it’s already one of the best 4X games I’ve played in a long, long time.

Endless space 2 galaxy shape