A couple of months ago when I previewed Empire of the Ants, I was excited by several things — the amazing graphics, the focus on gamepad based control and the kind of things the game had me doing. There were reservations though — a couple of missions felt a little out of kilter with the broader experience and camera and control issues did raise their head. In its alpha release though, Empire of the Ants is verging on the absolutely incredible.
Before I dive into this review in detail, let me just set the scene. Empire of the Ants is the second video game based on the titular novel from a chap called Bernard Werber. The first game was released in the year 2000 by a company called Microids — and you can still read the generally unfavorable reviews from that era at a few of the longer-lived gaming publications that were around at the time.
The reason I bring this up is because somehow, 24 years later, it is Microids again that have chosen to publish Empire of the Ants, albeit this time with a different developer (Tower Five) in tow. Microids are an interesting publisher, with more than forty years in the industry and a ton of experience (and some good titles). This gives me comfort that perhaps Empire of the Ants is more than just a commercial endeavour — that there is a passion here that comes across in the gameplay.
Anyway, with that said, Empire of the Ants could arguably be the most realistic looking game you ever play. As a child I often imagined a day when games would look just like movies (but not be shit, like those old FMV adventures that obviously were just movies) and now here we are. Everything else is essentially pointless now, because Empire of the Ants has done it. You can be an ant. You can run around an actual garden. You can be hunted by spiders and dive-bombed by wasps and bees.
But wait, are you saying that’s not enough? OK fair. You can run around as an ant building bases, hunting food, commanding troops and both recruiting and fighting against a huge array of garden creepy crawlies. If that’s still not floating your boat, you can collect about ten different kinds of things – from special beetles and butterflies to household objects as an ant might interpret them (sorting them mainly between what is edible and what is not).
From a gameplay perspective, Empire of the Ants is hung together with quite a decent, albeit minimalist story. We play as an ant (have I said that already) who initially proves herself through a series of simple missions back at home before being sent to a disaster-struck neighbouring colony by the Queen. We learn through this that ants are complex beings with both friends and enemies in the insect kingdom, and that neighbouring colonies are willing to assist each other in order to benefit their whole kind.
Anyway, once there, you’ll continue to prove yourself useful through increasingly challenging missions — with everything from hunting fireflies through non-strategic, semi-platforming levels to very-strategic 4X levels where you’ll build a base, expand outwards and then destroy your enemies (often termites, frequently other beasties) — represented among them. I love strategy games and I am often happy enough to get exactly what I was expecting from them. Empire of the Ants delivers everything I was expecting and lots, lots more, with perhaps the missions that don’t feature any strategy being the most surprising.
Most of the missions you’ll undertake will be accessed via one of several hub worlds which vary based on where you are in the story. The world of ants moves at a different pace to that of humans and so unlike in other epic strategy games such as games like Warhammer: Realms of Ruin which uses a linear story to drive momentum, Empire of the Ants simply lets you explore at your own pace.
For ants, everyone has a job and everything needs doing, so collecting food with ant number 180,456 is just as important as holding off the termites on the Western front and neither group of ants will know (or care) about what is happening elsewhere. For once, apathy in a videogame actually makes thematic sense. Probably. It is a shame that Empire of the Ants isn’t overtly clear about what type of mission you’re going to do before you start it, but to be honest that’s a small gripe.
I would also like to mention that you may not always love every type of mission. When I previewed Empire of the Ants, I did comment that some missions were a bit frustrating. I was talking about a specific early mission where we hunt fireflies — who move whenever you come close to them and were buggers to catch. In the preview, this was infuriating, but now, the fireflies have been slowed down, the controls are slightly more refined and this mission passed without too much trouble, however I would still question whether it was fun or not.
The level it takes place in (a kind of deep tunnel with some incredible lighting at the top and some lovely shadowed spaces and water effects at the bottom) is amazing, but the mission itself feels disconnected from everything else taking place near it. Firstly, the location itself makes no sense from where the mission is accepted, and then whilst I accept the need for food following the disaster that I mentioned, sending a lone ant that then simply “kills” fireflies (despite not having an attack button) and doesn’t need to bring them back is just… Weird.
I have other examples of this kind of thing and they almost — and occasionally do — break the sense of immersion. Bear in mind how realistic Empire of the Ants looks, and consider how good it sounds (I am telling you now, it sounds just as good as it looks) and you can imagine being right down there with these little guys. But then you’re asked to go and do something stupid or which doesn’t feel quite right and the whole thing briefly shudders like a brief glitch in the matrix.
Strategy missions are much more enjoyable overall in my opinion because they represent what I really wanted from Empire of the Ants. You’ll begin with a couple of nests and each of these has a legion attached to it — with warriors, workers and gunners as the mainstays. These can be upgraded to elite variants and plenty of other critters can be added, from aphids who perform a support role to much larger bugs that act as heavy armour, artillery or something else. There’s as much variety in Empire of the Ants as in any other strategy game I’ve played, with the only difference being that every beastie here is a real, living thing. Kudos for the variety, to be honest.
Nests can also be upgraded, with wood and food production, storage, defence, pheromone and intelligence upgrades all available. A nest can only have so many “chambers” so there’s a bit of an idea to push outwards relatively quickly. The more nests you have, the more legions — but also the more access to smarter and more powerful passive and active upgrades. The latter of these (the passive ones) come from the pheromones, which our ant can use tactically to empower, heal, boost or speed up her nearby legions.
Enemies during the early game are quite infrequent and fairly stupid, with termite legions coming in ones and twos with little variety. Later on, the threat level increases with more specialised enemies coming in greater numbers — and the possibility of losing one or more of your legions putting you in real difficulty. Even so, Empire of the Ants remains relatively easy when compared to some of the more serious players in the RTS genre, but then again it has platform sections that fat-fingered Warcraft veterans won’t be able to navigate — so there!
I want to close this review with a few statements. Firstly, I am probably unknowingly biased towards Empire of the Ants because I love strategy games, and I especially love strategy games that are so well optimised for consoles. I also love the natural world and the ideas that Empire of the Ants explores, and as I have already said, I have longed for games that look this photorealistic for many years. These things probably add up to me feeling better about Empire of the Ants than I should, but I am trying really really hard not to simply call this game the best thing I’ve played in years.
Staying objective then — Empire of the Ants looks and sounds like an episode of the BBC’s Planet Earth. It uses the original source material well, but it doesn’t overplay the story to the extent that ants become comical or less plausible. It delivers very strong, very unique and hugely varied RTS gameplay over the course of a sizable number of missions, and it occasionally changes pace (for better or worse) with missions more focussed on movement and exploration than strategy.
I’m just struggling for any reason not to recommend Empire of the Ants to basically anyone, especially if you have an interest in the natural world. I mean maybe the difficulty could be higher… There are some missions that I didn’t love… But at the end of the day, anyone who enters the room when Empire of the Ants is on the TV will stop and ask you whether its a game or a documentary. Then they’ll sit down and watch the battle unfold, rooting for your little nibblers. Then they’ll want to take the controller and give it a go – which they can because it all just works. I mean what more do you want? Bravo Microids, Empire of the Ants may have taken nearly 25 years to get right, but what a fantastic outcome.
