There are never too many games in a post-apocalyptic setting. Another confirmation is a city-building strategy with indirect control from the German studio Gentlymad. In the hostile world of Endzone: A World Apart, you can create something out of nothing and make the inhabitants of a squalid settlement happy.
2021 As a result of the terrorist attack, many nuclear power plants were blown up. The irradiated planet became uninhabitable. For 150 years, the few survivors hid underground and finally decided to get to the surface in an attempt to revive the desert planet. Plot-stamping? Yes. Like many elements from Settlers, Banished, Stronghold and Frostpunk.
We have at our disposal a dilapidated bus that acts as a town hall, and a handful of adults with children who are building the New World. The game will not start with a perfectly green field – you will have to process and create in an ugly radioactive meadow. And try to survive.
Where to start?
For the functioning of our entire venture, Endzone: A World Apart offers a system for distributing tasks between workers. If you want to build a building, you should not wait for all the free men to automatically run up and start working. There are no direct orders to specific characters here either.
The role of the player is passive. There are a number of professions: builders, water carriers, foresters, engineers, tailors, hunters and so on. The task is to take care of the balance, that is, to properly distribute people so that all the gears work. True, sometimes there are problems with the failure of the AI \u200b\u200bwhen the distribution of tasks does not work correctly.
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There is no rush or you will endanger the delicate balance of production chains, which will cause a massive pestilence of settlers. Finding it isn’t easy, but that’s where the fun and the challenge lies. The main thing is not to expect that a single strategy works in all missions the same way. It is necessary to take into account the influence of the environment, which at one point will force you to turn your priorities upside down.
The player in Endzone: A World Apart has a timeline that shows upcoming events. A drought is approaching – it is worth saving water. Radioactive rains are coming – it is better to stock up on protective suits and assign additional decontaminators that will clean up contaminated food.
The colonists are people of flesh and blood, not infantry, with whom you do what you want. They want to eat and drink, they need to be protected from radiation, they can get angry. And most importantly, they grow old and die. This is one of the most important elements of the game. The inhabitants are really fighting for their lives, and the player must help them in the fight.
You can forget about the classic real-time strategy model where you buy a certain number of dolls and pull the strings. Here everything happens naturally. People start families, children. The kids will grow up and start working. And first they must get an education at school and help as much as they can.
Someone will die? Relatives will want to bury him, so it is better to send the body to the gravedigger in the cemetery, and not leave it on the street, reducing morale. Is someone getting sick? You should go to the hospital to see a doctor. And sometimes virtual people just want to go to the pub, drink beer and smoke.
In addition to professional workers in Endzone: A World Apart, there are also free workers who do not sit idly by and are engaged, for example, in delivery. To build a building, materials are needed, mainly wood and scrap. And someone has to collect or extract raw materials. Then take it to the warehouse. And after the accumulation of the required amount of resources, the builder comes and starts the process. These little things happen in real life, but most strategies miss or oversimplify them.
It is worth noting that ugly buildings made of garbage, rusted sheets and pieces of scrap metal fit perfectly into the atmosphere, but do not always stand out against the background of ruins and other objects. And it’s inconvenient.
Gradually, the colony in the science center will invent new buildings. The tech tree is small, but that’s good because you’ll have enough to control. Over time, we will start sending expeditions, exploring abandoned buildings, finding new resources and fighting gangs.
It would seem that an authentic depiction of the activities of the human community brings with it problems with slowness. And it is. Although the developers took care of two and three times the acceleration of the gameplay, the project lacks dynamics.
Patience and a little effort
Endzone: A World Apart is a game for those who are patient and those who want to understand a complex system with an interesting gameplay. Therefore, at first it is recommended to undergo training for several hours (very long, but necessary), where the basic mechanics and elements are explained in detail. A separate praise deserves a textbook with highlights of every aspect and nuance for those who have forgotten or did not understand. Then you can try your hand at the mass of variations of the survival mode with fine-tuning the difficulty level, and finally start completing a dozen scenarios.
The main trap for the player is micromanagement, which will gradually turn into a routine. It is easy to manage a colony of several dozen inhabitants, but one of several hundred is a headache. There is no automation of tasks here, so the definition of workspaces for collecting scrap, plants, hunting and more has to be defined manually. And make sure they are up to date.
The problem also includes notifications. Information about some events appears, but it is presented uncomfortable. In order to notice the missing working unit in time and appoint a replacement, the player’s vigilance is required. And in the accelerated mode, it is not always possible not to miss a danger that is critical for the settlement or the lack of a resource. It is better to set autosaves (disabled by default) in order to replay a difficult moment in case of a miss.
Diagnosis
Evaluating Endzone: A World Apart is easy. This is a high-quality strategy without significant technical problems and failures. Most of the time you feel like you are part of a society that is on the brink of extinction. This is facilitated by excellent audiovisual material: apocalyptic music and a graphic background that perfectly reflects the surrounding world.
A decent level of simulation of residents here is adjacent to the need for careful management. The game lacks original ideas and eventfulness, it is solidly assembled from familiar pieces. It’s good, but not for everyone. An experienced strategist will quickly say: “I have already seen all this.”
The post-apocalyptic Endzone: A World Apart is pretty darn attractive, but the core of the game quickly falls into disrepair, despite the variety of settings and tasks.
Pros
- Attractive, lively, atmospheric
- Tons of difficulty and mission settings
- Nice soundtrack
Cons
- Tedious micromanagement
- No original ideas
- Lack of gameplay dynamics