You go through turns discovering new tech and units, eventually making peace or destroying your enemies. After you settle up, you then send your city off on some sort of project, whether that be a societal building that can create passive effects or a new unit, before deciding upon specific research options to study from a tree of choices. It begins on a large map covered by a fog of war, with you starting out with a combat unit and settler who can create a city.

When starting, it becomes immediately clear that much inspiration has been drawn from Sid Meier’s titles. There are also multiplayer and regular skirmish options, which many serious players will spend a lot of their time in. Planetfall does a great job of showing many different sides of the conflict. Many of them have characters that you actually grow to be invested in and it helps that most are not just ‘rule-the-galaxy’ type stories that you might expect. And that’s just a glimpse, with six incredibly well designed and distinct factions to choose from.Īge of Wonders: Planetfall comes with a single player story that each faction has, and they are surprisingly deep and engrossing. The Vanguards are remnants of the previous society hoping to restore order, the Dvar are a dwarf-like materialistic society of extractors, the Kirko are bug-like people who were slaves for most of their history. Just from this first encounter, it’s easy to tell that each of these are incredibly distinct and creative. At the title screen, there is the chance to scroll through images in the background, showing each of the factions that you can choose from. It’s set far in the future on a distant solar system, where there was a great civilization that had fallen apart hundreds of years before, and now many different factions with their own philosophy and goals are trying to make their way through the wreckage. The setting and visuals jump out immediately after starting, and Planetfall has a high sci-fi setting that’s unique for the genre.

Age of wonders: planetfall - xbox one