Ara: History Untold will make the wait for Civilization 7 less painful

This story is part of our Summer Gaming Marathon series.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII impressed with its gameplay debut at Gamescom Opening Night Live, but it’s not out until next February. Thankfully, Oxide Studios and Xbox Game Studios Publishing have an excellent alternative on the way next month, one that’s been seven years in the making. That would be Ara: History Untold, which I went hands-on with for over an hour at a Gamescom-adjacent Xbox event in Los Angeles.

It’s certainly overwhelming at first — as most 4X games are — but the more I played Ara: History Untold, the more I fell in love with its intricacies. With some clever design decisions, Oxide takes a fairly familiar strategy subgenre and applies tweaks to make watching a civilization grow feel even more personal and satisfying. While I’ll probably need to spend a couple of hours reading through the game’s glossary and tutorials before I can master it, I’m looking forward to doing so.

The goal of Ara: History Untold is to grow and expand a nation throughout history over 750 turns. The term 4X stands for “explore, expand, exploit, exterminate,” and you can expect that very gameplay loop here. Most of my demo, which started right at turn one, focused on the explore, expand, and exploit parts of 4X. Players begin by choosing a leader, all of whom are historical figures. I chose Tokugawa Ieyasu due to the military buffs he provided, although I ended up not really needing those benefits during my playtime.

Once the actual match started, I sent my scout out to uncover fog of war and reveal where resources were. Then, I had to start building up my nation to obtain those resources and start the endless cycle of growth that is the backbone of 4X games. This is where Ara: History Untold starts to get more intricate compared to some of its peers.

Whereas most 4X games have rigid tile systems with little in the way of customization, Ara: History Untold wants every growth-related decision to be well-thought-out. I