Back in the late 1980s and ’90s, the Sim genre of games exploded after the likes of SimCity. Amidst that increasingly saturated genre, the most intriguing of the bunch was Maxis’ definitively different SimAnt. SimAnt put you in control of a group of ants, with the goal of taking over a yard and defeating the rival red ants. The reason I bring that up is because there hasn’t really been anything like SimAnt since SimAnt, and when I saw the first trailers for Empire of The Ants, I was hoping that something similar was in the offering.
Empire of The Ants is inspired by Bernard Werber’s books of the same name and is a remake of an earlier 2000 videogame adaptation. While the game uses Werber’s books as inspiration, most notably for how the ant perspective is portrayed, it ditches the plot of the book for one of its own makings.
The plot throws you into the shoes of worker ant 100,000 and something. Yup, instead of names, our ants are simply designated numbers and the scent knowledge of which colony they come from. As a young ant, it’s your job to travel from your colony to a sister colony, which is dealing with a surprise flood and termite uprising, among other things. To do this, you’ll have to immerse yourself in the basics of ant-life and wage war on all who threaten your colony, while constantly scavenging in the world around you.
While I initially wanted to say that Empire of The Ants not being anything like SimAnt was disappointing, it’s not a sentiment that would be true. Instead of an in-depth simulation of ant life, we have an exploration-focussed, RTS-lite experience that relies on its sense of scale to consistently fill you with awe and wonder, even when the gameplay grows rote.
While we’ve all probably stared at those long lines of insects weaving their way through our gardens, engaged in the constant expansion of their colony, it’s one thing to view it all dispassionately from your porch. It’s another thing entirely to view from an ant’s eye view, down in the trenches. It’s easy to forget just how tiny these masters of the world are until you’re crawling all over the leaf of a flower or staring at the skull of a canine that makes a blue whale look tiny by comparison. Even more humbling when you realise that while you’re slurping down a cold one, there are entire cities going to war under your feet.
That impressive sense of scale is one of the games strongest assets, and it’s backed up with some of the most gorgeous and realistically rendered visuals I’ve seen. The developers have done an absolutely stunning job of recreating the illusion of nature in all its microscopic glory. From the complex terrain models with their exquisite textures, to the intricately detailed models of ants and other insects, the stunning lighting by day or night, and even almost missable details like the subsurface scattering on the ants themselves in daylight.
I’ve lost track of the amount of time that I’d simply stop to stare at the flood in a backyard while resting atop an exquisitely detailed branch as bees flew on by. Or the times I’d be transfixed by the activity close to a nest as thousands upon thousands of ants went about their daily tasks of exploring and bringing back food to the colony, all the while firebugs or ladybugs crawled all over the adjacent trees. And it’s all rendered with perfect performance on an Xbox Series X.
I didn’t experience any noticeable performance at all, which is incredibly impressive when considering just how many insects are onscreen at once, running across stones and foliage. The one visual trick I did notice – to keep performance in check, no doubt – is that, until you’re in combat, there isn’t any collision detection between insects. They’re still perfectly impressive when navigating the environment and the visuals are seriously gobsmacking. This game needs a photo mode stat!
Ther big question, of course, is how does it play? I found it a great, laid back, and sublime experience most of the time. The game breaks itself up into different mission types, from exploration, to hunting, tactics, and full-scale warfare. The exploration and combat sequences are by far the game’s greatest strengths.
Exploration is the most laid-back affair as you scout the environment and mark off items of interest by finding scent molecules on them, finding enemy hives, and food to feed your colony. One aspect that needs some work here is that being discovered by enemy units doesn’t seem to have any repercussions, even when you’re tasked with exploration by stealth. Hunting simply feels awkward in execution as you must jump at your prey to catch them. While you impressive, Hulk-style leaps are great for covering large swaths of ground, it’s not ideal for precision attacks.
The combat sections are the most tactical and fun, though they usually contain an element of exploration as you need to find resources to fund the war effort or find enemy hives and resources to exploit. While the game is clearly inspired by the likes of Command & Conquer, its mechanics are more stripped back on the tactical side.
You only have a handful of legion types, which can be upgraded into veteran and elite units, along with support bugs and one super predator bug you can breed. You’re also only capable of controlling a small number of units in any altercation. Defeated units will automatically re-breed at their hive and eventually become usable again.
Tactics as such are much simpler but no less effective in its rock/paper/scissors-style application. Each unit is strong or weak against another type, that is, and effective usage of melee warriors, acid throwing “gunners”, and workers are the key to success. It may initially seem complicated given the options for upgrading your nest while dealing with a limited number of chambers. You can build up wooden defenses, expand your food and wood storage chambers, upgrade your units, and develop “powers” of a sort, such as scent explosions that send enemies units fleeing in terror.
Typical RTS battles ensue between the need to explore to build up your resources, take over other nests, and continuously building up your own legions to prepare for the inevitable wave of enemies – some of which enforce a time limit. For the most part, Empire of The Ants is a rather laid-back affair, both during exploration and combat, providing a chill experience that I really appreciated. There were some difficulty spikes in the late game, however, and some missions that didn’t provide me with enough feedback on why I’d failed them. That said, the game seems catered more to the more casual RTS player.
Rounding out the package is a multiplayer mode that pits you in one-vs-one battles or three-player free-for-alls. The exact same mechanics apply here as in the single player campaign and victory so far seems to come down to the fastest and more experienced players. I didn’t find any performance issues here either, though I did have some trouble connecting to the three-player FFA matches. Experienced RTS players looking for a consistent challenge will likely find it here when pitted against another human player.
Although Empire of The Ants may not be the SimAnt revival I was hoping for, it’s still a gorgeous and enthrallingly, laid-back RTS title that, at least, tries to be something different and a bit special in a familiar genre. And for me, it was a great experience.
Empire of The Ants was reviewed on Xbox Series S|X using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC and PS5.
Empire of The Ants (Xbox Series) Review
Empire of The Ants (Xbox Series) ReviewThe Good
- Fun, streamlined RTS gameplay
- Stunningly realistic visuals
- Flawless technical performance on the Xbox Series X
The Bad
- Some late-game difficulty spikes
- A few missions didn’t provide enough information on why I'd failed them
- It needs a photo mode!