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Endless Legend 2 is finally leaving early access, and if you've not lost a multitude of days to this elaborate 4X, well, what are you doing with your life? Anyway! Now is the time to rectify this terrible mistake.
There are a lot of reasons for Endless Legend 2 to be on your radar. There's the elaborate, story-driven campaign where you'll juggle your faction's personal quests on top of the big, overarching story; the new city-building mechanics, which allow you to build settlements and then connect them to other cities, making megacities that span multiple provinces; and tidefalls, where the ocean retreats and reveals new realms underneath, maintaining the brilliant exploration phase throughout the entire game.
For me, though, the main hook continues to be developer Amplitude's talent for designing brilliant asymmetrical factions. Faction design is really what separates Amplitude from its contemporaries and predecessors. It's been leading the pack in this regard for a while, to the point where even Firaxis started borrowing ideas for Civ 7. Though that didn't quite work out for the Civilization studio. But for Amplitude's games, it's what makes them truly sing.
With Endless Legend 2, however, things are a bit different. Where the first game gave us a bunch of brand new factions that didn't really play like anything else, Endless Legend 2 gives us a mix of old and new factions. Thankfully, Amplitude hasn't lost its touch—even the returning factions feel novel and bespoke.
Endless Legend 2 takes its asymmetry very seriously. This is not a case of getting a few unique units or buildings. The differences between the factions are fundamental. In many ways, they are playing very different games as they try to dominate the wet, wet world of Saiadha.
Take the Kin of Sheredyn. This lot are kinda like militant paladins, and they're very much worth considering if you love to turtle up, hiding from the planet's many dangers behind indomitable walls. The more fortified you get, the more toys you have at your disposal, as well as economic bonuses. They've also got magical powers. Really this is what remains of their tech, as a former space-faring people, but there's a fantastical bent to them.
While the Kin chill behind their walls, the Sandshapers are unrelenting expansionists. And this doesn't just mean building lots of cities. It means completely changing the world to suit them. They are fuelled by sand. But this damp world is devoid of sand. Thus, the Sandshapers must terraform the planet and then feed on these new deserts. It is a completely different way to play the game compared to all the other factions, and I confess I've not quite got the hang of them yet.
But I love that! In most 4X games, you can kinda just wing it no matter who you pick. In Endless Legend 2, you need to throw out the rule book and start leafing through a brand new one whenever you take another faction for a spin.
This goes a long way to making the seemingly small faction roster of six feel a lot meatier. But that number doesn't quite paint the full picture. With Endless Legend 2, Amplitude has introduced the concept of rogue factions—new race variants that put a fancy spin on the existing ones. So far, there are two of them. One for the Kin, and another for the all-consuming Necrophage hivemind.
The rogue factions are a great example of Amplitude finding novel ways to make interesting choices even when there's an overlap. So while the Order of Zelevas shares a lot with the Kin, especially its militant focus, it actually plays very differently. It's expansionist for one. Where the Kin benefit from focusing on the capital, making it as fortified as possible, the Order strike out and get rewards for controlling more territory. It even has different mechanics for unit recruitment, where soldiers are exclusively purchased instantly for dust, Endless Legend 2's main currency.
With a greater need for dust, the Order must become an economic powerhouse as well as a military one. In turn, this means you'll be building your cities in new ways, following a different strategy compared to a Kin player.
All of these differences are just the starting point. The choices you then make in regards to research, unit upgrades, city development, diplomacy and what minor factions to assimilate turns each of these predefined factions into something that's uniquely yours. And none of this would matter without a compelling campaign. When you throw these weirdos together in a constantly shifting world, that's when Endless Legend 2 starts to become something truly special.
Endless Legend 2 leaves early access on September 22, and you can grab it now on Steam.
