Humankind's first big expansion is about winning friends and influencing people

Humankind, Amplitude's Civilization-alike that sees you guide your culture-shifting community from the Neolithic to the Contemporary Era, is getting its first major expansion this autumn.

Called Together We Rule, the add-on is hoping to get players to take their fingers off the nuclear button and set their minds to making peace, which feels like quite a pointed thing to focus on at the moment.. The expansion will introduce a host of new features aimed to emphasise the diplomatic and clandestine aspects of statecraft, with the aim of further beefing up the non-military aspects of Amplitude's 4X and encouraging players to "resolve conflicts differently".

The most significant piece of that expansion looks to be the "Congress of Humanity," which sounds like the World Congress from Civ, which itself is pretty much just the United Nations. At the Congress, you'll be able vote on legislation that has impacts across every empire on the map and bring your political weight to bear on other people's conflicts. A new embassy system will let you sign agreements with other factions or bend them to your will, and new "Agents" (I think that's "spies" to you and me) will let you screw around with other empires without sending in the tanks.

The expansion will also contain a smattering of new cultures and wonders, and be accompanied by a "major" free update to the game that will be received by everyone. That one promises to add new stealth mechanics and tinker with the UI a bit, among other bits and pieces. I don't know what "stealth mechanics" look like in a 4X game, but I'm imagining the Byzantine Empire tapping on a wall to distract guards. Hopefully that's what they mean.

We rather liked Humankind in our review of it, praising it for its "great ideas" that we couldn't wait to see "imitated and iterated'. There was some room to grow, though, and with any luck Together We Rule will go some way to filling it.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.