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Humankind has been on the market long enough now that we can start bringing the good, the bad, and the ugly to light. To be fair, there isn’t really any ugly. Humankind is a beautiful game, and the aesthetics alone and relaxing city builder element to the already complex title. While Amplitude’s Humankind can certainly draw some similarities form their long established competition Sid Meier’s Civilization, what makes them successful and unique is all their own. Like any new entry into a predefined genre, it does come with its share of issues that at times can detract from the immersion or can just lead to plain boredom. Luckily none of its issues are enough to completely detract from the overall entertainment value and quality of the gameplay.

As far as being a new entry into the 4x genre, Amplitude’s Humankind excels, as long as the game continues to receive balance and content updates we can assume it will reign a heavy hitter in the industry going neck and neck with the Civilization series. With the proper love and TLC Humankind has the potential to become the leader in the genre, defining it for future titles and competitors.

One of the things this title does best is it visual representation of the planet the player is moulding. The Beauty of the landscape, matched with the eagle eye view of the players perspective lends to some awe-inspiring views. Sending your early tribe into areas covered with fog of war only to reveal gorgeous valleys and magnificent mountain ranges can quickly send you into a planning fervour, imagining how you will transform the beautiful landscape over the course of your play through. These landscapes come filled with wildlife such as deer, bison, birds, etc. That wander the map simply to add to aesthetics, and it worked brilliantly. Match all that with the wonderful ambition sounds that have been added into the game to match the environment and you have an extremely immersive experience. Slowly watching over the course of the game as these landscapes transform into cities lets you feel utterly apart of the grand design of the planet your people occupy.

Amplitude not only nailed the environment, but they nailed the combat as well. Battles feel like they actually occur and affect the area instead of just the usual non-stop unit onslaught that most 4x wars turn into that eventually end up as sporadic unit vs unit engagements as the factions at war run out of units. In Humankind, you form armies out of various units that march as a group on the map to engage with opponents armies in sectioned off battles that render areas of the map unusable for anyone not involved during the ensuring battle. These battles are then turn based allowing for several turns of the battle to occur within a single turn of the overall game. This make battle feel like they are these momentous occasions that deserve attention, instead of just the above mentioned unit meat grinder.

There are several things needing improvement, sooner rather than later hopefully, in order to keep fans interested enough to stick around. One of the major problems Humankind slams into face first is the late game lull. As the game drags on into the later eras, and players begin sending things into space and every corner of the map is discovered and colonized, the action all but disappears except for the odd occasion. This is due to the player getting to a point either where victory is all but assured and war is no longer necessary and all that must be done is finish working on victory condition related projects or, victory not being assured and needing to devote all assets in your sphere of influence to completing projects and constructions that could hopefully vault you into first place in the final turns. This isn’t a problem unique to humankind, however it is a problem its major competitor has recently overcome, and if Humankind isn’t able to follow suit it could hurt the games longevity. The Sid Meier’s Civilization series solved this by adding HEAPS of contents throughout every era of the game, heavily focusing on gameplay elements that would affect the end game greatly, to list them all would need its own article. It is exactly that reason that Amplitude must hit the ground running with this title. Its competition has had such a head start, that just being beautiful isn’t enough, it needs that re-playability that its competition brings through all its DLC over the many years its been in the market before Humankind.

The other major roadblock is its learning curve. While there there several additions here that make certain elements of the gameplay quite accessible to newcomers such as the one time resource rights purchasing when trading, and a very clean UI (user interface). While most games in the 4x genre suffer from cluttered and confusing UIs that can scare off new comers to the genre, Humankind does an excellent job of not bombarding the player with information when looking over the map. This comes as a doubled edges sword however, as you start to learn the game and the mechanics that make it what it is, you also start to hit ‘lack of information’ road blocks that slow down gameplay. In many instances of the game such as expanding your influence over other civs regions, or fighting back against an opponents aggressive religious spread it becomes difficult just figuring out where it is your losing, or what to do to reverse that. As it is now, picking up Humankind as a newcomer to the genre is a great introduction to what the 4x vibe is all about, but as a long time player in the genre it can be frustrating to figure out the workings of the more in depth numbers and mechanics of the game.

All the negatives considered it is still a game worth picking up and learning if you are a fan of other 4x titles, the things it does well far outweigh the things it doesn’t. The beautiful landscapes and sprawling cities alone make it worth the price tag purely as a relaxing city builder, there is even a “peaceful mode” when playing, so you can do just that! Humankind is an excellent addition to the genre, and although it sufferers from many of the same problems other 4x games do, it excels as a unique and entertaining title. Keep an eye on it in the future as large scale DLC and expansions could propel this game to the level of the Sid Meier’s Civilization series and possibly ahead of it as the leader of the 4x genre, as well as define the genre for future titles.