Category: Games Ara: History Untold’s Multiplayer is Designed for Speed, Flexibility, and Fun
Mike Nelson, Xbox Wire Editor
Published
September 10, 2024
SummaryPresident of Oxide Games Marc Meyer shares additional details about Ara: History Untold’s unique multiplayer system.The innovative multiplayer experience for Ara: History Untold will lean on new cloud-based technologies to give players more flexibility in how to play together online.Ara: History Untold is launching September 24, 2024, and is now available for pre-order on Steam and the Microsoft Store – or play it day one with PC Game Pass.
It’s tough to get a group of friends to join you online to play a grand strategy game, a genre that is synonymous with epic gameplay sessions that can last many hours at a time; sometimes even spread across many days. But that’s also part of its allure. Some of my favorite gaming memories are of playing strategy games with friends that extended well into the night.
But finding that kind of time to enjoy this genre with friends these days is a tall order. Not only because I have a mountain of responsibilities, but it’s also because many of these heavy time-investment games have been unable to develop systems that can accommodate my life schedule. This is an area that Ara: History Untold is trying to solve for, by using new cloud-based technologies as well as innovative approaches to simultaneous turns, to have a grand strategy game that can fit around our busy lives, instead of the other way around.
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“To make these epic games not only practical but also enjoyable for players over extended periods, we’ve implemented cloud-based Ara servers. These servers allow the game to exist in the cloud, enabling players to seamlessly continue games in progress, whether they’re playing synchronously with others or asynchronously at their own pace. The key feature here is the ability to pick up right where you left off, making it easier to enjoy the game over weeks or even months without losing momentum,” President of Oxide Games Marc Meyer shares.
This robust online experience for Ara: History Untold will be a huge factor that helps it stand apart from competitors in this genre space. With games being hosted on the cloud, it means that you will be able to jump in and out of multiple games – you won’t need to have all the players available at the same time. This is where its unique simultaneous turns system comes into play.
“The key differentiator in Ara: History Untold is our simultaneous turn system,” Meyer says. “Players aren’t stuck waiting for others to finish their turns; instead, everyone makes their moves at the same time. This significantly reduces turn times, enabling us to support 20, 30, or even more players in a single game. It’s a more streamlined and engaging experience, letting you focus on the strategy rather than the waiting.”
To handle situations where different nation’s forces come into conflict, the game uses an initiative system based on the speed of the involved units to determine the outcome. Battles in Ara are similarly resolved as a single event, with both sides inflicting and receiving damage based on their statistics.
“Balancing fairness while ensuring each nation in the game feels unique is always a challenge,” Meyer adds. “Our focus has been on using extensive telemetry data to ensure that no nation (even Rome) dominates unfairly. With thousands of hours of data from players, we’ve been carefully fine-tuning the game to ensure that, while each nation plays differently, they’re evenly matched.”
The core game loop of Ara: History Untold is that you win by improving the lives of your people. You can measure how well you’re doing by referring to the Quality-of-Life scale that’s displayed in every city — this represents your nations’ ability to research new tech, build military strength, how productive your cities are, and how fast they can grow.
“The way players affect quality of life is through producing items. Look around at the items you have (in your home): computers, mobile phones, refrigeration, vaccines, and so on. Go back in time to the medieval era. What did they have? Basic medicines, grain stores, musical instruments, maybe some glass windows. Go to the Bronze age or even Neolithic era and you’re dealing with an occasional feast, herbal medicine, pottery, crude tools,” Meyer says.
For each example above, these items require resources and sophisticated supply chains to make them happen. In Ara, you can trade with other nations to get these goods and resources, or resort to conquest, as long as it’s not at the expense of your people’s well-being. Improving the lives of your people involves having access to resources and the knowledge to utilize those resources in innovative ways. And with crafted resources, players can form trade pacts, create research treaties, and forge alliances.
“While it might seem straightforward, in practice, it’s incredibly powerful. For example, if you want another player — human or AI — to “handle” a particular rival for you, you can gift them the resources or units they need to do the job. It’s a subtle but effective way to influence the battlefield without getting your hands dirty.”
Being able to customize these experiences will also be part of Ara’s accessible approach to its multiplayer design, Meyer explains. “At launch, we’re focused on understanding what players want rather than just what we envision. As we see how the game’s ‘meta’ evolves in first few months following release, we will look at introducing a range of new features that will allow players to customize their multiplayer experience and enjoy different paths to victory.”
We won’t have long to wait until we’re all able to start squaring off with friends online as Ara: History Untold is launching soon on Steam, Windows PC, and day one with Game Pass on September 24, 2024. While I may no longer be able to play multiplayer games well into the night too often anymore, I’m excited to see how Ara will allow me to experience its magnificent grand strategy experience on my time.
Ara: History Untold Deluxe Edition Preorder Bundle
Xbox Game Studios
☆☆☆☆☆
★★★★★
Get it now
Build a nation and lead your people throughout history to the pinnacles of human achievement as you explore new lands, develop arts and culture, conduct diplomacy, and go head-to-head with your rivals to prove you are the greatest ruler ever known. It's Your World Now.
The Deluxe Edition Includes
• Ara: History Untold Base Game
• Exclusive Leader Collection – featuring five exclusive leaders not included in the base game including: Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, Yoo Gwan Soon, Hildegard and Boudicca.
• Modern Leader Skin Set – enhance five Ara: History Untold leaders (Elizabeth I, Genghis Khan, Nefertiti, Sappho and George Washington) with the Modern Leader Skin Set, featuring modern versions of their in-game costumes.
With your pre-order of the Deluxe Edition receive the Gilded Leader Skin Set.
Ara: History Untold Standard Edition Preorder Bundle
Xbox Game Studios
☆☆☆☆☆
★★★★★
Get it now
Build a nation and lead your people throughout history to the pinnacles of human achievement as you explore new lands, develop arts and culture, conduct diplomacy, and go head-to-head with your rivals to prove you are the greatest ruler ever known. It's Your World Now.
Ara: History Untold is an evolution in historical grand strategy, featuring beloved classic PC strategy mechanics alongside innovative gameplay like a national crafting economy, true simultaneous turn resolution, a non-linear technology tree, and cloud-backed synchronous/asynchronous multiplayer – all with an expansive and vibrant presentation where you can zoom out from surveying the very edges of your empire all the way down to your citizens living their daily lives. In Ara, there are no pre-set paths to victory, leading to endless possibilities. Your choices will define the world you create, your experience, and your legacy.
Explore an Immersive Living World
Explore a dynamic living world filled with life and charm across sweeping landscapes ranging from tropical jungles to sand-swept deserts as you discover the resources you need to develop your nation. Witness the world come to life in vivid, realistic detail as citizens move throughout the world and react dynamically to times of health and sickness, war and peace, wealth and despair with unique biomes, cultures, and eras representing the diversity of human experience.
Build Your Nation
Serve your people and grow your prestige with numerous Improvements, from forges to libraries, citadels to cathedrals, public parks to industrial factories – as well as a global variety of the greatest architectural Triumphs ever conceived and built by human hands.
Guide your people through the eras of human discovery
Nurture your people’s brilliance and invention as you progress your Nation through twelve unique Technology Eras, making the hard choices about where to focus your Nation’s greatest minds. As you near the end of each Era, you’ll have to decide how fast to push your scientists along the path to the future – at the risk of the present.
Oversee a rich and detailed national economy
Harvest the bounty of the natural world and deploy the labor of your people with a depth-filled National Crafting system. Will you manufacture Amenities – like lavish feasts – to provide your cities and citizens with powerful benefits, or invest in the creation of Equipment – the weapons of war – to prepare your Armies to defend your nation or conquer your rivals? Whatever paths you choose you’ll need to carefully optimize your resources and production to achieve the most efficient systems if you want to outpace your rivals to fortune and lasting glory.
Rule Your Way
Choose from dozens of history’s most influential figures to embody as you reshape the world through your choices. The unique and varied global Leaders and Nations in Ara emphasize a wide variety of different playstyles. Experiment with gameplay-impacting Traits and powerful Leader Abilities drawn from the effect they had on world history. Whether friend or foe, each Leader has a distinct personality based on their historical background that informs their AI behaviors.
Experience True Simultaneous Turns
Every turn each nation's actions and choices resolve simultaneously, leading to suspense, anticipation, unique outcomes, and surprising twists on the classic turn-based formula. The fate of your people will be determined by your decisions and your ability to predict your opponent’s next move, putting your skill as a leader to the ultimate test.
Defend your people by land, sea, and air
Warfare in Ara is presented in the Living World, as thousands of years of military conflict reflect the progress and martial prowess of your people. Develop technologies to advance your weaponry against your rivals, hone your wartime economy and industry to gain the edge, and outthink your opponent’s strategies as maneuvers resolve authentically at once thanks to the power of True Simultaneous Turns.
Prove Your Worth in Online Multiplayer
Combining the speed and surprise of True Simultaneous Turns with the power of the cloud – multiplayer in Ara is fast, seamless, and able to be enjoyed asynchronously with a wide range of options to tailor you and your friend’s experience to the way you want to play together.
A Microsoft Account is required to play online multiplayer.
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