Grand strategy games are a bit too big to demo.

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As in most 4X games, you start off small, with the early game mostly concerning scouting, upgrading your village, and finding resource-rich territory to claim.

Now Playing:Ara: History Untold Interview | Xbox Games Showcase Extended 2022

That starts with choosing your civilization and its leader, of which there are a lot.

Ara includes 36 different leader choices, each of whom has their own special bonuses for their civilization.

One of the main ones is a crafting system.

Crafting different items gives you ways to change the focus of your cities and boost the happiness of your people.

you’re free to also craft other objects that give certain buildings and improvements a leg up.

It also makes your civilization’s development feel a little more organic.

Developing that technology can let you make alcohol, which increases your people’s happiness but lowers their wisdom.

The Act system eliminates civilizations that fail to be memorable to the world, relegating them to the dustbin of history.

As you advance, you get additional opportunities to choose specific pathways through the game.

Like in other 4X games, you’ll sometimes trigger one-time events where you have to make a decision.

As with other major civilizations, Ara tracked my relationship with these folks.

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The slots I had available allowed me to either boost food production or the speed of building improvements.

And finally, after a while, my civilization earned me a Paragon–a notable historic figure.

Ara also shakes up the usual 4X gameplay by dividing history into three Acts.

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The Act system brings what developers call a “battle royale” element to the 4X gameplay.

I’d like to spend a couple hundred more turns seeing how those choices shake out.

Ara: History Untold is launching on PC on September 24.

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