Ara: History Untold Review

Ara: History Untold sits in that genre that is often overlooked as a mainstream game. Set out to clearly rival the likes of Civilization, the world-building simulator is all about building a functional kingdom and taking over the world. So instead of small-scale management where you have to build roads and houses, Ara: History Untold tasks the player to become as big of an influence as possible to get the best out of their empires.

You start off by picking a historical race of people and slowly build them up into a thriving society as you progress through the ages. However, getting there is the real work. Ara: History Untold is an incredibly layered game with various mechanics and systems to understand. The tutorial alone can take a few hours to get through and even then, I kept having to reference the help section on certain aspects of the game.

You then also take on the role of a leader who has a certain play style and selection of perks. They play into the game’s diplomacy mechanics where you’ll need to negotiate with AI leaders in order to be friends, make trade or go to war. Sadly, these leaders aren’t remotely interesting. They often feel like cookie-cutter builds with one clear intention from the get-go rather than real personalities in charge of countries.

A big change in Ara: History Untold compared to Civilization is that it relies on a chain management system to progress the game. So you need to start with the basics of a resource before you can get it produced. This means harvesting goods, crafting items from the goods and then making the resource. All of this can also be optimized.

The game also expands its design by making use of territories instead of shape spots on the world map. So each region is uniquely divided up into portions and the player needs to decide where to place down constructions. I did enjoy this visual change. It added a bit more realism to the world crafting apart from the usual board game-like approach.

Ara: History Untold also doesn’t hold your hand even when you ask for it. Throughout the game, I constantly discovered new things about its systems that it wasn’t clear about. For example, researching topics can impact the resources you are locked out of later down the line. So if you forget to research paper, you won’t have it when you’re able to build libraries. It is a strange progress loop and one of the many features in Ara: History Untold that struggle to come together.

While I struggled to understand the game’s core mechanics at first, I did grasp them a few hours in. Sadly, that is where the wheels fell off. It is where I noticed all the flaws in Ara: History Untold and there are far too many. The UI is especially cumbersome. Information is layered in tab upon tab which makes it difficult to gain insight into your current game. Menus are clumsy and overcomplicated making the per-turn mechanics a real slog to get through. Not to mention the management system is incredibly tedious and only gets even more so the longer you’re in a game.

Ara: History Untold falters here quite often. The game’s starting hour is often enjoyable. Simpler worlds with fewer constructions and features are easier to manage. However, as you grow and build more areas and unlock more research, the sheer micromanagement in every turn becomes a pain. So much so that spending time in mandatory micromanagement overshadows the expansion features and other strategic mechanics on offer here.

Every turn became a rhythm of sorting through menus, clicking on troops, moving them around, changing an item, checking the timeline for expansion and ending the turn. This was great at first, but the longer I sat in Ara: History Untold, the more tiresome it got. By the time world expansions come along and more features unlock, the game has already felt like a marathon of menus.

Then there are the AI opponents that are poorly designed too. It all feels a bit unbalanced as they would build faster than the game’s speed. Their cities lacked the basic structures and research yet they had the resources which came with researching the science. It all seems a little suspect. Add that to the mechanics that don’t work (the wonky research system) and I realised I was spending hours of my life in a game that became a job.

Ara: History Untold does have some positives. While systems don’t work as well as intended, the game’s freedom to let me specialise in different directions was a welcome change. This meant I could expand territories and focus different regions on different resources. I was able to build an entire city for food production and another that focused on industrial structures.

But the chore that comes with every cool mechanic in Ara: History Untold takes away from the experience. Some systems don’t work and some, like the combat encounters, are incredibly simple. Combat works similar to other 4X games. I placed down some units and they fought another army. I had no control over the fight apart from picking the units and deciding what perks and abilities they had.

Ara: History Untold does look wonderful from a visual point of view. Music and sound design is also up there with the best. The move away from blocks creates immersive worlds whereas the structures and detail of the land help bring everything to life. Sadly, this is all covered in those cumbersome menus and tabs which often take away from the beauty.

Ara: History Untold isn’t a bad game but it could be better. If some polish was given to the game’s systems and progression, it would make things much better. It is completely playable not at all a broken experience. But there are issues you’ll need to be aware of when jumping in. Some of these will have you scratching your head while others will have you confused at first. However, it still makes for an enjoyable time.

This Ara: History Untold review is based on a code sent to us by Microsoft. The game releases on 24 September for PC and Xbox. It is also available on Xbox Game Pass.